


Revelations

by FuryInYourHead



Series: The Curious Case of Lexi Stuart [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: sherlockbbc_fic, Dark Sherlock, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Idiots in Love, Martial Arts, Murder, Mycroft's Meddling, POV Female Character, POV Sherlock Holmes, Parental Lestrade, Sarcasm, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2018-12-26 12:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12059403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuryInYourHead/pseuds/FuryInYourHead
Summary: One year has passed since Lexi Stuart and Sherlock Holmes watched Moriarty fall to his death. Moriarty's death came at the cost of John's life and while everything seems to have been buried in memory, nightmares have a way of crawling back into the light. Lexi Stuart's life has been shrouded in mystery until now and Sherlock Holmes certainly isn't ready for this...





	1. Chapter 1

_ I’ll be your gravity, you be my oxygen. _

_ I will follow you, 'cos I’m under your spell. _

_ And you can throw me to the flames, I will follow you. _

 

 

Alexandra Stuart’s fist smacked off of the punching bag with exquisite force. The person behind holding the bag stumbled slightly at the impact, his shaggy brown hair rustling with the movement. Sherlock Holmes regained his footing after skidding backwards, he leaned around the punching bag with a roguish grin on his face.

“And here you were saying you didn’t think the tendons in your wrists would ever recover,” he saidamusedly. 

Lexi stuck out her tongue at him with one eye scrunched together in a mocking jest. 

“Yeah, yeah I get it I’m good at punching… but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever get back into med school.”

Sherlock shrugged, he knew it was better to keep his mouth shut than to give out false reassurances. His thin fingers wrapped back around the punching bag as Lexi threw another solid hit into it, she tilted slightly and brought her foot around so that she hit the side of the punching bag with her trainer in one swift motion. Sherlock hadn’t been expecting the frustrated kick and he stumbled once more.

“Keep up will you?” She jibed, her voice light and airy. Since the rooftop incident Lexi had relaxed her forced English accent somewhat and her Irish melodies were more prevalent. It made every sarcastic comment sound more like a joke and it made Lexi sound far more positive and engaging than she actually was. 

Sherlock let go of the punching bag and dusted his hands on his grey tracksuit bottoms. His well toned arms wrapped themselves around Lexi’s smaller, toned body. She smiled up at him before standing on her tip toes and planting a gentle kiss on his lips. A stifled moan turned into a long, wanting sigh from the detective’s throat, in response hungry lips pursued hers. But it was then someone cleared their throat from across the room. They had been the only ones in the dojo, where Lexi had trained for years, but now it seemed they were in company. Sherlock paused, his body rigid. He didn’t like to be caught in ‘human’ situations and he certainly didn’t like anyone other than Lexi seeing him expressing his emotions. Lexi understood his logic, since their minds worked on similar wave lengths, she just didn’t care so much. She guessed spending a night or two in a crack den would do that to a girl. 

Mycroft Holmes stood at the edge of the sparring matt on the other side of the room; as usual his face wore an unimpressed expression while his entire body stood in such a way that screamed ‘upper class elitist tosh’. The elder Holmes' eyes, however, had an amused glint in them — it was a look Lexi didn’t like.

“Training are we?” He asked, his carefully sculpted voice grating off of Lexi and reverberating around the empty dojo. Sherlock further sighed as he heard his older brother, he hadn’t turned around yet. As he turned around Lexi noted his hands left her body. This time Lexi sighed: whenever she had Sherlock on the cusp of expressing his admiration and love for her outside of 221B something always popped up and broke his attention. 

“Mycroft. What brings you out of your secret bunker lair?” Asked Sherlock dryly. 

Mycroft leaned against his umbrella, the glint in his eyes had spread and now he was smiling slightly at his younger, irritated brother. 

“England is in peril, brother mine, and you and your… associate… are called up to duty.” 

“I’ve told you, Mycroft —“

Lexi cut over Sherlock with a sarcastic comment.

“Anything less than an eight isn’t worth bothering him for.”

Both of the Holmes’ looked at her in surprise. Lexi felt suddenly scrutinised and she shrugged as if pushing away the accusations.

“What? It _is_ what you usually say, Sherlock.”

Sherlock gave her a warm smile, a secret one that was only meant for her, but it lasted less than a few moments before he turned his clinical gaze back at his brother.

“What she said.”

Mycroft smiled again but Lexi could see he was fighting the urge not to snap at his evasive younger sibling.

“This is a ten, Sherlock. A matter of such importance that it requires your attention immediately. Both of your attentions.”

Lexi had turned to her training bag (dumped just a few feet away from the punching bag) as Mycroft spoke and had been in the process of wiping sweat from her forehead when she heard his words and paused. The only thing they had ever classed as a ten was Moriarty, they had had that discussion with Mycroft to stop his over exaggeration of new cases. He had said ten now and he had meant it. Lexi looked to Sherlock and he too had turned rigid; his face, which had previously had the hint of a smile on it, was now stiff and dark with worry, his body had become even more awkward.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock asked quietly. 

“Quite.”

Lexi threw her towel over her shoulder.

“What is it then?” She asked curiously.

Mycroft’s steely blue eyes traveled to her with foreboding. 

“You must first agree to take the case.”

“Fine. Yes, we’ll take it,” snapped Sherlock, his usually velvety voice was hard and impatient. 

Mycroft nodded with what looked like a relieved face, whatever Sherlock had agreed to had taken a load of trouble off of his brother’s back. She noted that even if they seemed like they hated each other they would still look after one another. Blood was thicker than water after all. Mycroft rearranged his stance as if getting ready to give them bad news.

“Well? Spit it out, My,” said Sherlock.

“It’s, ehm, well, it’s quite a hard case because it’s something that I alone cannot deal with. Though I have been trying to keep you out of it, what with your habit of ducking out on my calls, I can no longer.”

Lexi gulped, she was worried that ghosts from her past were about to emerge from the murky depths of her mind. 

“It has come to my attention that Mummy and Father are returning from America this week and they have decided that they need to check in on us… especially you.” 

Lexi snorted with laughter, though she found it irritating that Mycroft had made a whole load of trouble out of nothing it was still miles better than the alternative. 

“Oh man you really had us going there,” Lexi chuckled punching Sherlock playfully on the arm. But Sherlock did not move. His face had grown even darker and his eyes seemed to be fighting their own inner dilemma.

“Sherlock?” She asked, aware he wasn’t responding to her voice. Sherlock then, after what had seemed like the longest time, bit his lip.

“Well… shit,” he muttered anxiously. 

Lexi frowned at Sherlock and looked to Mycroft for help. He too seemed concerned. 

“What is going on?” She queried looking for undertones in their conversation, “is Mummy a codeword for something?”

Mycroft shook his head sadly. 

“I’m afraid not. Mummy and Father have been trying for some time to see Sherlock but he has a habit of being a bit… evasive, in part thanks to you. They want to know what, or who, has been keeping their youngest off the radar for so long.” 

Sherlock gulped.

“I have a case,” he said childishly. 

“No we don’t,” Lexi responded confused. Sherlock shot her a seething look but it had been too late for Lexi to pick up on the excuse. 

“Well we might,” he retorted sticking out his bottom lip.

“Listen, Sherlock, we have no choice in this. They’re already here,” said Mycroft.

Sherlock blanched, growing increasingly alarmed by the minute. 

“Wait, what? Where are they?” demanded Sherlock.

Mycroft looked at the floor sheepishly. Sherlock tilted his head angrily.

“Oh Mycroft what have you done?” 

Lexi still didn’t get it.

“What’s so bad about having parents over?” She asked innocently.

“What isn’t…” muttered Mycroft.

“They’re at 221B. Lexi, they want to meet you.”

Eventually the penny dropped.

“Oh fuck,” she said, wishing the alternative had been a real possibility. The blonde haired woman was not ready for such commitment. It seemed she had no choice. 

Sherlock Holmes and Alexandra Stuart had an appointment to keep. Lexi sighed at the prospect.

 

The metal locker slammed with a clang as Lexi threw her backpack over her shoulder. Sherlock’s face appeared as the locker closed with a most sorry face. 

“Lexi…” he began.

“Nope.”

“Come on.”

Lexi turned to Sherlock with a raised eyebrow, her arms crossing.

“‘Do they even know about me?” She asked.

Sherlock seemed to consider his response before replying.

“No.”

“So how do you know they want to meet me if they’ve never met me?”

Sherlock rearranged his stance so that he was leaning against the locker. He never looked so normal.

“Well, they don’t know my preoccupation is a person, they think it must be a new hobby… or an old one. Unfortunately my parents are a cross I have to bare. You can understand that, right?” He asked, slowly worming his way towards Lexi. He did his best to close the gap between them when he knew she was mad with him and it usually ended with clothes on the floor and nothing achieved.

“Sherlock, I don’t want the Spanish Inquisition on my doorstep — I’m not ready to meet your parents.”

Sherlock took her under the arms with a roguish smile. He planted a soft kiss on her lips reassuringly and it took Lexi all her strength not to melt into submission.

“You’ll be fine. I have no choice and if you are my rock then you have no choice either,” Sherlock mumbled between kisses. Lexi stifled a moan but responded hungrily to his kisses with her own. Abruptly Sherlock stopped and sighed his eyes looking towards the floor.

“Do stop lurking Mycroft,” his deep voice cut across the silence. Lexi felt her cheeks burning, she didn’t like to be seen in a compromising situation, especially since Moriarty. Mycroft appeared in the doorway, Sherlock had once again stepped away from Lexi’s grasp.

“Hope I'm not interrupting.”

“Yes, you are interrupting Mycroft,” snapped Lexi, irritated her body was reacting against her wishes, she knew her cheeks were rosy red.

“Apologies, but our parents will not wait for too long.” 

Lexi looked up at Sherlock, he smiled sympathetically and let out another sigh. He too seemed like he needed to steel himself for the oncoming storm. 

Lexi pondered as they left the dojo: Sherlock’s parents couldn’t be all that bad, could they? 


	2. Mummy Dearest

Lexi spent the twenty minute journey back to Baker Street wondering just what she had let herself in for. The journey was awkward enough because Mycroft had insisted he’d drop them off at their destination but he had made it even more awkward by sitting across from them in his chauffeur driven car. Sherlock hadn’t thought to bring a suit with him when they had gone to the dojo that morning: they had for the better part of two months had the same routine, early morning work out, steamy shower sex and then a hearty breakfast. Sherlock, quite rightly, had said taking suit to the dojo would have been a waste but now as he sat in a new suit, one which Mycroft had had made for him. When she’d asked Mycroft about the suit he had said: ’one never knows when one needs to bail out little brother’. Lexi decided it was perhaps better to just let boys be boys than worry about what situations led to Sherlock needing to be ‘bailed out’ by his elder, senior government official brother. 

Sherlock adjusted the collar of his crisp blue shirt, it didn’t matter what tailor worked their magic, Sherlock always looked dapper. He always looked ready. Lexi had been informed curtly by Mycroft that he didn’t tend to keep women’s clothes spare since neither he nor Sherlock required it. Lexi had bit her lip to stop from spilling the time she had come home to Sherlock wearing her bra, (because it had ‘been an experiment’) and had instead graciously decided to own her own clothing. She wore a navy green, loose blouse with long sleeves and a pair of black skinny jeans, her blonde hair had been cut into a long, tidy bob since the rooftop incident and her weight had increased exponentially. She no longer looked like a user and her presence was more than a wafer on the wind.

But that didn’t mean Lexi liked the fact that she looked more suited to being in the queue in McDonald’s than meeting her long term boyfriend’s family. Lexi took the time in the car to ponder the elder Holmes’. Were they like Sherlock and Mycroft? Stunningly intellectual but emotionally dum? Or was numb the better word? Perhaps Mrs. Holmes was the protective matriarch of the Holmes clan, sitting on her grandiose throne and watching her sons create revolutions. Perhaps Mr Holmes was the recluse just as Sherlock was and only ever ventured out in times of need, to rescue those that needed saving. In their entire time together Lexi noted Sherlock had never ever really spoken about his parents, it shouldn’t have surprised her since she didn’t have a family of her own and therefore it hadn’t made sense for her to ask about family when it wasn’t her concern. 

“Mycroft?” Lexi said, cutting into the awkward silence with her chirpy tones.

“Yes?”

“Why are you both avoiding Baker Street? We’ve taken three extra traffic stops just to add time onto the journey.” 

Mycroft sniffed and looked down his nose at his umbrella, still in his hands.

“It takes time to put up … defences against our parents,” Mycroft said cryptically. Lexi frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“He means he can't be with them for too long lest his IQ begins to drop,” interrupted Sherlock with an unusual level of formality in his voice, “let’s get this over with, Mycroft.” 

 

The car pulled up outside Baker Street but no one made to move from the car. Lexi made an exaggerated motion with her arms as if to encourage movement but neither Sherlock nor Mycroft made a move. 

“For goodness sake, you two,” she snapped as she shuffled out of the car door, “Sherlock if you don’t get out of that car I’ll take my clothes off before I go in.”

The car door shut behind Lexi leaving Mycroft and Sherlock in the car. Sherlock squinted in thought at the thinly veiled threat. Mycroft snorted disbelievingly. 

“She wouldn’t do such a thing,” Mycroft said. Sherlock scrabbled to get out of the car, only giving his older brother one last glance.

“Yes, yes she would!” 

When Sherlock caught up with Lexi at the front door her blouse had partially been unzipped. There would have been a time when Sherlock wouldn’t have believed his partners threat of nudity but he had learned the hard way, in front of Lestradé no less, that Lexi always carried out her word. Lexi stopped and waited for Sherlock to glide up the few steps to Baker Street with a small smile on her face, Sherlock couldn’t help but feel his heart twinge slightly at her gaze. Even after everything they’d been through, she still managed to make him feel like an inexperienced, awe struck child under the gaze of God. Before Sherlock could say anything he noticed Lexi looking over his shoulder, he turned to see the black car which had delivered them to Baker Street slowly pulling away from the kerb. Mycroft’s window came down and his airy voice danced up to the two at the front door.

“Apologies, brother mine! Duty calls! Do give my wishes to our parents…” 

Sherlock stuck out his lip petulantly. He had realised at some point that this had all been in Mycroft’s agenda, there was no reason for him to attend an awkward social gathering when the youngest of the family could do it instead. Sherlock took in a breath before turning to Lexi who was looking up to his face with mild concern.

“Ready?” 

She nodded with a reassuring smile. 

 

Mrs Hudson really was a lifesaver. She had dusted around the flat and made sure that Lexi’s eyeball experiment had been put away before his parents had had a chance to pass out on sight of the soggy eyeball. He could hear the chink of china and warm, distant voices from the top of the stairs. Placing his hand on the lower of Lexi’s back Sherlock led her upstairs towards the voices. He paused at the door with a pained expression on his face.

“We could always run away, now’s as good a time as any…” he whispered.

Lexi placed her hand on his cheek.

“We’ll be fine, now tell me why we’re whispering?” 

“Because … well, because.”

Lexi chuckled involuntarily and the sound of moving china stopped. They had heard them.

“Too late,” mumbled Sherlock.

He pushed the door open and walked in in front of Lexi.

“Sherlock!” 

Mummy pushed her way up past Mrs Hudson and took her son into her arms, Sherlock didn’t move to return the cuddle but he did squirm to be out of the arms of his mother when she began to kiss his cheeks. 

“It’s been too long! Didn’t we tell you to keep in contact more?” She asked, her voice none the bit the same as the Holmes’s brothers, hers was instead warm, jovial and sincere. Mrs Holmes was not at all how Lexi had imagined her, she had imagined a shrewish woman with equally as angular a face as Sherlock’s with as domineering a gaze as Mycroft. A portly, ruddish woman with a pin up hair-do hugged her youngest son for dear life, where Lexi had imagined a scowl only concerned wrinkles laid. Behind her a thin, older man stood up. He had on a knitted body warmer and slacks and small inflections of the Holmes brothers was obvious. Lexi took a nervous step back. The movement caught the eye of Mrs Holmes and she let go of Sherlock long enough to see Lexi properly.

“Hello?” Mrs Holmes said, greedily eying up Lexi.

“Hi…” Lexi said skittishly. 

“Sherlock, who’s this?” 

“This is Alexandra, Alexandra Stuart. She’s, well, she’s been renting the spare room.”

Mrs Holmes’s eyes flashed knowingly. 

“I see, well dear, it’s lovely to meet you at last.” 

Lexi smiled thinly and nodded.

“At last?” Asked Sherlock, puzzled.

“Well we knew someone was keeping you distracted but I never thought it would be a sweetheart.”

“Don’t use that term,” Sherlock moaned, his face scrunched with displeasure, “you make the entire room drop in IQ.”

Mrs Holmes flashed dangerous eyes at her son, she obviously didn’t approve of his dry wit and sarcasm. Lexi smirked as Sherlock averted his gaze. 

“I’m Lexi, no one calls me Alexandra.” 

And then Mrs Holmes did something quite extraordinary in Lexi’s eyes. She gathered the smaller woman up into a giant bear hug. Just when Lexi thought she mightn’t be able to breathe, the older woman let go, to her relief Lexi took in a few gasps. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“Sorry dear, I do love hugs. None of my children seem to like them unfortunately. But if you’re joining the family you may as well get used to them.”

If Lexi had been drinking she would have nearly choked on it. Her eyes widened slightly.

“Oh we’re not —“

“No, we’re just—“

Mrs Holmes cut both Sherlock and Lexi off.

“Tea?”

 

Soon enough the four of them were around the table and a small silence had set upon them. Lexi stuck to drinking her tea whereas Sherlock petulantly plopped thirteen sugar cubes into his drink, his eyes staring at his parents.

“Why —“ he paused, remembering who he was speaking to, “what brings you to London? I thought you would both have been line dancing in Arizona.”

Mr Holmes chuckled, “well, son, when you don’t call or text or Skype we worry.”

Sherlock frowned.

“I never call, text or Skype you.”

His father smiled. “Exactly.” 

Sherlock plopped another sugar cube into his tea in response, his lower lip sticking out like a sulking child. His parents noticed but instead chose to change their attention to the silent Lexi.

“So, Alexandra, what do you do?”

Lexi ignored the fact they called her Alexandra. What did she do? She supposed she earned her money from solving cases that Lestradé couldn’t. Her last had been the mysterious murders of cartel members, seemingly Mrs Hudson had had nothing to do with it but when she was almost assassinated with a hair pin Sherlock and Lexi had had to intervene. ‘I’m not a member of any cartel, I just helped Frank with his paperwork.’ She had said nonchalantly over the unconscious body of an assassin. It had turned out that an old rival of Frank Hudson had thought Mrs H had been running the American cartel from London when in fact she had been so far removed she had almost killed herself with the poisoned her pin after she had discovered it. Lexi had had to pry it from her hair carefully ensuring it didn’t touch her scalp. But that wasn’t exactly the best thing to say to the parents of a loved one. Lexi tilted her head minutely thinking. 

“I suppose I’m Sherlock’s business partner, we work closely with the New Scotland Yard solving cases that require a specialists touch.”

Mrs Holmes raised an eyebrow, “so you don’t do anything of your own?”

The question stung Lexi slightly, she had done something of her own but now she was unable because of her hands, she rubbed them self consciously.

“I was in med school, I could’ve graduated early but I hurt my hands you see and I don’t think my arms are capable of performing surgery.”

Sherlock’s parent’s looked at her wrists in curiosity and Lexi instinctively pulled them away from the table, deep silver gouges in her wrists were not something she was proud of — even if she hadn’t done it herself.

“You poor thing, I bet your family was dreadfully worried.” 

“Uh, no, I don’t have family. I was an orphan.”

Mrs Holmes’ frown deepened further, Lexi could see the sympathy in her eyes but it was unspoken. Sherlock changed topic.

“So it was lovely to see you but we have work to do…”

Mr Holmes stood up, in suit Mrs Holmes did too. 

“You really must talk to us more, Sherlock, we do worry so.”

“Yes, yes, I get it. I'll send you texts, but I must remind you I’m not a child anymore.”

Mrs Holmes turned to her son and held his cheek gently, her thumb rubbing along Sherlock’s cheek bone with a mother’s touch. 

“You will always be our child, Sherlock, no matter how old you get.”

Sherlock mumbled under his breath, Lexi couldn’t hear it but she figured it had something to do with expressing his emotions to his mother. Something he hated doing but was bound by blood to do anyway. 

“Take care of Mikey, dear, you know he’s as bad as you!” 

The Holmes’ toddled out of the door chuntering about meals and plans for the future. Lexi watched bemused.

“It was lovely to meet you Alexandra, do take care of our Sherlock!”

Sherlock slammed the door before Lexi could reply, instead she responded with a raised eyebrow at her flatmate. He leaned against the door and let out a long sigh. 

“Momentary lapse in normality, sorry.” 

Lexi smiled and approached Sherlock, her hands coming around his chest and joining behind his back. Sherlock instinctively pressed against her chest with a smile on his face.

“Enjoy them while they’re here.”

Sherlock nodded, “I know,” he replied, “but they do so lower the IQ in the room. Even if mummy wrote that maths journal.”

Lexi said nothing about the fact that Sherlock’s mother was likely as smart as he was, if anything he didn’t need his ego deflated any further. She kissed his lips softly.

Sherlock kissed her back before melting slightly towards her. Soon their kisses became stronger and Sherlock had lifted Lexi up to his waist. She wrapped her legs around his chest, kissing his neck as she did so. But fate was not meant to be.

Someone cleared their throat at the door and Sherlock froze. Lexi looked over Sherlock’s shoulder sheepishly, they hadn’t moved and Sherlock had turned into a statue. For all it was worth Lexi may as well have been straddling a pole. Mrs Hudson stood at the door with a knowing smile. When she made eye contact with Lexi she covered her eyes with her hands and ran to the table.

“Don’t mind me, you two, I’m not here!”

Within seconds Mrs Hudson had ninja’d in and out with the cups in her hands. Lexi still found it bizarre to have her own theoretical maid. (But she reminded herself of Mrs H’s' words: ‘I’m your landlord not your maid.’) She smiled as Mrs Hudson disappeared and looked back down at the red faced Sherlock.

“We need to work out your people skills, my dear,” Lexi said humorously at Sherlock. He relaxed into her slightly, his eyes coming back to life.

“I think people need to work on their privacy skills, personally,” he replied, Lexi snorted in response.

She kissed his soft lips once more before Sherlock made a move, with Lexi kissing his neck and wrapped around his chest, towards the bedroom.


	3. The Dredge

He grabbed his bottle from the corner of the mantlepiece greedily, next he produced a hypodermic syringe from his moroccan style case. With a lick of his lips, as any addict would, he adjusted the fine needle. He rolled back his left shirt cuff revealing an arm pocked with red marks and puncture marks, he looked thoughtfully at his waxen skin before he plunged the needle deep into his arm, pressed down on its piston and sat back into his velveteen red armchair with a satisfied sigh. 

He could imagine the anatomising of the cocaine in his blood stream, the cocaine mixing in to his sanguine blood could only have been one particle in a million against an unstoppable tide of life running through his veins but that didn’t make it any the less exquisite. Sherlock had spent the better part of three days in a deep depression, neither water nor food had passed his thin, crusting lips and his body had only moved in order to inject the sweet cocaine into his body. It blasted his mind into oblivion and offered him the mental exaltation that the mundane could not, the mundane that had very much become his life as of recent. 

“Which is it today, morphine or cocaine?” Called a voice from beyond the high.

Sherlock raised his eyes languidly from the pulse of his forearm seemingly caught up in the rhythm of his own heart beat. Watson stood leaning slightly forward on himself, as if he was hunched over a morbid grave but it was in fact his dear friend that he had taken to standing over. A thin, croaky ‘hmmm’ rose from Holmes’s throat, it was raspy and hoarse the questioning sound of a man who had neglected his own care for the zillionth time in the past few days. He had heard, but he hadn’t _heard._

“I said which is it today, morphine or cocaine?”

“Is cocaine,” he drawled, “a seven percent solution. You should try some, would make you feel whales better.” 

Watson considered his friends terminology for a moment, ‘whales’ wasn’t exactly a good measurement of pleasure but then when his friend was high logic and reasoning vacated the room. Sherlock watched with blurred eyes as his friends face began to twist.

“Answer me this, Watson… Johnny-boy, aren’t you dead?” 

A droplet of blood danced down John’s forehead, akin to rain against an umbrella. 

“Yes, man, yes I am very dead indeed.”

“S’how you’re here?” Sherlock continued.

Another droplet proceeded to dance down John’s forehead and an angry bruise began to form at the left temple. Sherlock squinted lazily at his tempestuous friend. 

“That’s elementary, Sherlock!” Exclaimed John, overly cheery for a man with an increasingly worrisome looking bruise forming, “you’re dreaming.”

“Well then my friend it is good to see you.” 

“You aren’t finished yet, Holmes.”

“Wha?”

“You aren’t finished.”

Blood pushed out from the pores of Watson’s temple. The blood pooled together and it seemed as if Watson’s entire temple was beginning to crack like porcelain. Sherlock didn’t like the look of the blood or its coagulated cracking companion. An uneasy feeling rose in his throat and the detective realised the feeling was sick in the back of his throat. 

“This cocaine isn’t agreeing with my constitution…” 

Watson tilted his head to one side, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forwards to analyse his ailing friend. Blood dribbled out onto the carpet from the tilting Watson’s head.

“This isn’t the cocaine, Holmes, I told you.” 

Sherlock placed his index fingers on his lips and rested his elbows in the crevasse of the chair arms. The enveloping scene in front of him wasn’t overly pleasing to the eye but he was in no position to turn away from the fiasco, so what was left of his working brain decided to process the information. Somewhere a phone went off but Sherlock continued to watch John with languid eyes, still layered with the telltale brightness of the consulting detective’s usual fervour. The melody of the phone distracted Sherlock from his haze momentarily and his lazy eyes drifted towards the source of the noise. There was no phone. He frowned, befuddled with the situation and looked back at the ever-ailing Watson. Part of Watson’s face, the part where Lexi had shot —

he called out to her but received to response — was beginning to peel away like wallpaper, Sherlock noted the level of decomposition in the gunshot wound. For the first time in a long time he felt dread, his friend (one of his only friends) was dying all over again and it was not the kind of high he wanted to experience. Sherlock shut his eyes tight, like a child hiding from the darkness he didn't want to see John in the state he was in but John seemed to persist. Even with his eyes shut Sherlock saw his dead friend staring at him accusingly. What had been a happy trip was now a waking nightmare. Sherlock wanted to wake up. 

“Sherlock. Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock,” said voices over and over with repeating anxiety. His thin shaking hands came to the sides of his face and he scrunched his eyes shut. 

Then the noises stopped. Sherlock paused.

He opened his eyes.

John stood in front of him, eyes white and maggots falling from his face. Sherlock made a small groan at the sight. 

“SHERLOCK”

 

Sherlock sat up hurriedly with a sharp gasp, as if coming up for air. He was bathed in a cold sweat that made him shiver. Or was he shaking? He couldn’t tell but the memories of John’s cold, rotting face plagued his vision. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes viciously. What had worried him wasn’t John’s dead face but the use of cocaine, his complete and total willingness to give in worried him immensely. 

Lexi stirred at the noise of Sherlock gasping awake, her small figure shifting slightly in the bed. She looked at him with small, sleep ridden eyes before frowning and sitting up. 

“Sherlock?”

When he didn’t respond Lexi touched her lovers shoulder, he jumped at the touch and his head flicks towards her with wild eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay. Sherlock, you’re okay,” Lexi said with her hands reaching his cheek reassuringly. Sherlock flinched at the touch but soon relaxed in to her warm hand. Lexi smiled quietly, “it’s okay…”

Sherlock’s breathing slowed and he looked down at the checkered bedsheets. 

“Bad dream,” Sherlock mumbled.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” She asked softly. 

Sherlock shook his head, the last thing he wanted to do was dredge up memories for Lexi, especially of John. Lexi sat back in bed, her eyes drifting slightly at the tiredness that plagued them. Sherlock sat at the edge of the bed, he smiled weakly at her.

“It’s okay, go back to sleep.” 

Lexi nodded silently before sliding back down into the quilt. Sherlock couldn’t help but smile at her cuteness, though the smile didn’t last long. Instead he stood, wiggling his toes as they cracked against the cold floor. He padded into the living room silently, his hands rubbing at his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to put on a dressing gown or t-shirt not when Lexi was asleep in bed and they had no visitors. Instead his half naked body found itself in its rightful place, on the armchair closest to the fire. Somewhere along the way he had picked up his beloved, though new to him, violin. His old violin had been broken in the furore of last year and since he had tried to track down, using the best of his detective skills, a similar violin. He had been semi-successful but had lost a considerable amount of money replacing his beloved instrument. 

Still, it had its charms. 

Sherlock plucked aimlessly at the string, comfortable in the knowledge that Lexi wouldn’t stir to the noise. Since Moriarty had fallen to his death Lexi had slept soundly, as if the one danger in the world had been repelled. Sherlock didn’t dare remind her that Mary was somewhere in the world, grieving and alone and living in utter hatred at the both of them. He knew one day she would come calling. He didn’t know if they were ready or if they even should be ready, after all they had killed John in her eyes. 

He thought about his dream, about John’s face: how it rotted and bled and dripped all over the rug. It dawned on him he was sitting in the same place as in his dream. He paused, thinking to himself. John had once said that dreams were simply replacements for things one had seen already, he had deleted the thought from his brain because it had little place in his filing system. Though still all of his dreams were based on memories, or at least a variation. Sherlock placed down his violin against the coffee table and stood. He turned to the fireplace and pulled at the corner of the wooden piece, it slid open much like a Chinese puzzle box and in the small, hollowed out container sat a cylindrical bottle. It didn't take a genius to know what it was. 

Sherlock slammed shut the corner of the fire place and slumped back down haphazardly in his chair. Had he known it was there all along? Of course, but it had been stored away in a memory only nightmares could reawaken. 

Sherlock plucked absently once more at his violin, this time with more irritation than before. He realised why he had been so irritated. John sat in the chair opposite him with a small smile on his face, as if he had just been reading a funny anecdote in the newspaper. Sherlock looked back at the fireplace and then down at his violin with watering eyes.

Tonight would be a long night. 


	4. The Seedy Ambassador

It was seven o’clock at night and as most of the nights did in winter a heavy cloud had set upon the south-London residence, only a streak of blood-red sunset hugged the horizon. While the last of the sun hugged the horizon above, the rest of London bustled below. Ambassador Seok Ki-Jung held his whisky glass in his hand like a chalice and watched the traffic of south-London from his personal high-rise apartment. Ambassador Yong Ki-Woo stood next to him with the same kind of crystal glass and with the same kind of superior brand whisky. They stood close together and talked in low hushed tones so that no one overheard their conversation with their cigars dangling from their mouths like small trophies. 

Seok Ki-Jung was a small man for his position, he could hardly have been picked out as an agent of the North Korean Supreme Leader. If anything it was his skills and talents which had put him in first-place for the English reconnaissance mission, since being placed in London this had only increased tenfold and one of these talents had been the acquisition of the portly, elder man stood next to him. Yong Ki-Woo was the chief secretary of legislation for British relations with North Korea and it was his presence that had cleared the palatial suite of serving staff. 

“Things are moving quite quickly now and ahead of our schedule. I can foresee all North Korean embassy workers being withdrawn to our home country within the week at the most,” said the secretary, “and you will be received in our home country as a war hero, as the one who guaranteed our own victory. The Supreme Leader will be most pleased with your work here.”

Seok Ki-Jung chuckled darkly.

“Yes, the British are a very ignorant bunch. Even the South Koreans are more active in their political spectrum.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said the secretary in response, “they have strange limits and one must observe them so as not to get caught in their trap. It is that docility and simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for a stranger such as ourselves. Ones first impression is that they are a soft folk and that it is quite easy to walk over them with our deception but then that is when we are at our weakest.”

The Ambassador inclined his head. 

“What ever do you mean?”

“Well, take my own first appearance in this country. I attended a luncheon at a summer house of a certain Minister a few summers ago and upon my conversation I decided to send a ‘resumé’ back to our homeland. It was not until I had further conversation with this Minister and an appropriately placed comment by said Minister that I had realised he was aware of the ‘resumé’ I had made. You have no idea the setback it gave me, since no one trusted me for a great deal of time. Now you with that sporting persona of yours —“

“It isn’t a persona if you enjoy what you do.”

“Perhaps that makes you more effective then. You bet against the right teams, you gamble and play snooker and polo and you win in almost every game but you seldom make them feel alienated in their own sport, in fact you have become so adept at allowing them to win they see you as good sport and a good Asian, you are hardly a spy in their eyes even though behind closed doors you are nothing more than the most talented spy in all North Korea.”

“You flatter me Ambassador though you are right in that my last few years in this country have been my most productive yet. I’ve yet to show you my little safety deposit box have I?”

The door from the balcony opened into a wide, bright room with a minimalist feel to it. Black corner sofa’s lined the room but in the centre was a stand-alone fireplace. It was at this fireplace, pressed into the very chimney, that a security pad rested. Ambassador Seok pushed seven buttons in a specific pattern and the window shutters began to lower. Only when the room was lit by artificial light and the shutters were heavily bolstered down did Seok continue with his showcase. He pressed a further five buttons in to the fireplace and it lifted in a very elaborate way. Underneath was a floor safe with a separate set of keypads. Punching in the second set of numbers the safe clicked open with a beep. The artificial light illuminated the interior of the safe and in it were pigeon holes with elaborate names in Korean. Translated to English they had names such as ‘Embassy’, ‘Treaties’ and ‘Navy’.

“See for your own eyes my four years worth of work in this pittance of a country.” 

The secretary looked in interest and absorption at the neatly filed papers and memory sticks. 

“A-mazing,” said the secretary as he breathed out in awe. 

“Not such a bad showcase for a man who supposedly is, as the men of todays society say, ‘one of the lads’, wouldn’t you say?”

“How do you keep up with such things? I know you are a man of fine talents but not even you could keep all of these files and dockets up to date.” 

Seok Ki-Jung tapped his nose knowingly.

“I have a good friend named Alamont who can guarantee the order of my work.” 

The Secretary looked at his watch and sighed before checking his phone. 

“I can’t wait any longer Ambassador Seok, I had hoped this Alamont would have brought news of your extraordinary _coup_ but alas I will have to receive it via text. Are you sure he will come tonight?” 

Seok pushed his phone in front of Yongs face, on it a text message was displayed.

_09:05AM: Will come without fail tonight and bring new sparking plugs. -A_

 

“Sparking plugs?” Queried the Secretary befuddled at the notion. 

Seok smiled.

“The man poses as an engineer and I, of course, have a plethora of cars that need working on. In our dialect everything has an ulterior presupposition: a ‘radiator’ is mention of a battleship’s location, an ‘oil pump’ is a cruiser and so on. Sparking plugs are naval positions.”

Yong puffed on his cigar thoughtfully.

“And what do you give such a man?”

“Five hundred thousand for this particular job, as the English tax collector sees it, I have a great deal of cars in need of fixing,” again Seok chuckled deprecatingly. 

“Greedy bastard. These traitors are useful but they are not held in any kind of regard for me.” 

“Quite, though I hold nothing against Alamont, he works splendidly and if I pay him well he, as he says, delivers the goods. In theory he is no more a traitor than we, for he is an Irish-American and he has as much love for this country as we do. Rarely I understand him for I think he’s declared his own war on the Queen’s English as well as her country.”

“An American, I see.”

“Must you leave? He’ll be here at any moment, I assure you.”

“No I’m sorry but I have other meetings to attend and I really must attend to them. I shall expect you early tomorrow.”

The shutters came up on the apartment and the dusk filtered into the room once more. Seok walked Yung to the door of the apartment and let him out into the hallway of the palatial building. A shadow in the room moved behind Seok and Yung frowned looking back over Seok’s shoulder.

“Who’s that?”

Seok glanced back and smiled knowingly. “That is Miranda, one of my last remaining staff, the rest I had shipped off when news of my departure came in.”

Yung nodded politely at the young woman but the blonde only smiled and bowed her head slightly in response.

“She is as valuable as they come, for a deaf-mute she works exquisitely well.”

Yung shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, well, she might almost personify Britain with her ignorance.”

“Quite.”

With a final wave of his hand Ambassador Yung disappeared down the corridor, he was so taken with his own thoughts on the way down the lift that he failed to notice the individual he had passed on his way out of the elevator. 

Ambassador Seok sat comfortably back on his settee as he watched the last red blood of the sunset disappear behind the dark of the night. London’s skyline slowly began to light up like an illumination and the traffic below betrayed the lines of road that made up much of the metropolitan. The silence of the apartment (if it could be called just that given its size) was new to him in that it was usually filled with the bustling of his staff and family. Besides the fact that Miranda was deaf and mute she was quite pretty and good to have around, though he had considered her life before her employment to him (for she had the most peculiar scars across her hands) it really didn’t matter when she was as good as she was at her job and ensuring her nose was kept firmly out of everything. In order to join his family Seok had a great deal of confidential waste management to go through, after all the papers in his possession weren’t the only copies for he had sent many back to his own country for report. He turned the fire back into its original position and opened the grate before beginning, slowly, to deposit of many of the papers in his possession. A leather suitcase stood balanced on his coffee table and bit by bit he placed the most invaluable of paper into it carefully ensuring their categories were not mixed up. Then he heard a knock at the door and Seok clapped his hands gleefully, his time was almost up in the cold and wretched country he had had to call home for the past four years. 

“Well?” He answered the door to his visitor. 

In response his visitor waved a brown parcel in his face. 

“As you requested, the coding signals for the British navy. Though, mind you, they aren’t the original copies because that would be far too suspicious.” 

Alamont clapped the man on his shoulder triumphantly before moving past him into the apartment, taking the brown parcel with him. Seok followed obligingly after the parcel. 

“I have been waiting for this, of course this is better than the original because no one wants them to change the coding.”

Alamont plonked himself down unceremoniously on the sofa, his long legs stretching out in front of him. Alamont was a man in his late twenties, characterised only by his goatee because his features were too clear cut. For a man so young he certainly was resourceful. He struck a match from a cook’s matchbox and lit a cigarette in his mouth.

“Makin’ a move, are we?” He asked, is American tones coming through. Seok smirked at him, offering him a glass of whisky. The American turned down the whisky with a wave of his hand and looked about the room. His blue eyes stopped on the suitcase.

“Say, mister, you don’t keep all of your confidential materials in that case do you?”

Seok looked at the case with a frown. 

“Of course I do, when I am transporting it.”

“Well then, I hardly think I should be giving this information to you if that’s the case. A Yankee crook would be able to slice that open like a can of sardines.”

“You wouldn’t be able to get it that easily,” said Seok, “it can’t be cut by any metal cutter or special laser or acid.” 

“What of the lock?”

Seok touched the case slightly with a deprecating smile on his face yet again. A sense of smugness danced on his shoulders. 

“A double combination lock. Do you know what that is?” 

Alamont shrugged. “No sir.”

“You need a word as well as a set of figures in order to open the case, I had it made myself.”

“You got all your assets covered then, huh?”

Seok nodded graciously at himself. “Indeed.”

“Well you won’t find me in this country once you disappear, no sir.”

“Why is that?” Asked Seok with a frown.

“Well, mister, it seems you don’t keep all your assets covered since half of your employees have been taken by the British government in the past few weeks. Seems to be since you finish workin’ with them they get taken.” 

Seok bristled slightly. “And what do you mean by that? Who precisely do you mean?”

“Well there’s James—“

“That was his own fault, you know he was too self-willed for the job.”

“Rottin’ in Portland. There was Hollis.”

“Hollis was a madman with no care for his own.”

“Suppose a guy does go crazy under the same guise for so long. Then there was Steiner —“

Seok flashed dangerously angry eyes but his hands shook nervously with his whisky glass chinking against the ice.

“What about Steiner?” He demanded.

“Coppers got him last night, they did. Last I heard Scotland Yard had him locked up in Portsmouth jail. Y’see, you disappear and whoever is left will have to face the music.”

Seok let out a sigh trying his best to control his anger once more. 

“If that is true then it is a real shame what happened to Steiner.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe they’re far off me so I’ll be taking my sweet ass off somewhere nice and warm I think.”

“You don’t mean that, surely?!” 

“Steiner is the fifth man you’ve lost after finishing working with you and I know the name of the sixth if I don’t get a move on, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

“I hope you aren’t suggesting I give away my own agents?” Asked Seok.

“Would never dream of it, let’s finish this, where’s the goods?”

“Sorry?”

“The dough, the reward, the moolah, you know.”

“Let me see the codes first.” 

Alamont stood up, towering over the smaller man.

“Now listen, mister, you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you and I won’t offend your genius by suggesting you trust me.”

Seok nodded slowly. He tapped on his iPhone and held it up to the American. On the screen was a banking account with the total sum just waiting to be sent, but just like Alamont he didn’t offer it to his counterpart. 

“So we’re clear, Alamont, I would like to see the package before I send you the money.”

Alamont nodded in agreement and chucked the parcel over gently, Seok caught it and opened up the brown paper and tweed. As he did so he clicked the send button on the money. He smiled gleefully for a moment but then his smile dropped and a frown replaced it. The book which he held had the golden title of _‘Practical Handbook of Bee Culture’,_ Seok didn’t understand the codename and just as he was about to query it a cloth came around his neck and pressed firmly against his mouth and nose. The chloroformed sponge was held in front of his writhing face until all movement stopped. 

 

“Glass of whisky, Lex?” Asked Sherlock Holmes ever the bit delighted at himself. Lexi appeared at the sofa, eventually having changed out of her ridiculous maid outfit. 

“Hit me, and don’t be shy because I’ve felt like a sex doll in this bloody outfit all week.” Lexi threw the outfit across the room and into the fire, it went up with a pop and a crackle and disappeared into the flames. Lexi grabbed the whisky off of Sherlock and slumped down next to the very unconscious Seok who had a strap around his arm and a strap around his legs. 

“We should open the windows, the chloroform vapour is making me dizzy.”

Sherlock nodded, taking a gulp of his whisky, and pulled on the giant doors to the balcony. The wind burst through and eradicated the after smell of chloroform. Sherlock moved back towards the case after carefully filing through the different pieces of paperwork and arranging them accordingly.

“Sorry it took me so long to send you a text, by the way, that incorrigible secretary wouldn’t leave.”

“Yes, I saw him on the way out but he was too busy getting excited at the prospect of world war three to even care to who he was walkin’ — walking — past. This bloody accent has all but destroyed my own English one.” 

Lexi raised a brow. “You do like to complain, y’know?”

Sherlock grinned over the letters, “it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.” 

Sherlock paused at the letters, a wider smile crossing his face. “These are some of the original letters Seok had stolen, he hadn’t sent them because they were too sensitive to send.”

“Won’t really stand up in a case of treason will they? He stole them but didn’t do anything with them.”

“Quite but you’re also forgetting what that means. It shows motive and means and will obviously highlight how imbecilic my brother’s security is,” Lexi snorted at the remark, “besides not all of the information I supplied was…accurate. It might be that a few test nukes are fired at the wrong time which will make Seok’s masters look a little less… professional. Besides, I haven’t seen you in a week almost, how are you?” he asked her this as he gathered her in his arms and planted a kiss on her lips. She frowned looking back at him.

“I’m fine, I can’t say the same for your face. What on Earth is this?” She asked pointing at his goatee.

“Sacrifices one makes for their country, I suppose.” 

“It’s a sacrifice you’ll make for me if you ever want to kiss these lips again, Holmes.” 

“Tomorrow it’ll be a dreadful memory Lex, promise. As will, hopefully, this accent be.”

“I thought my training had gone off well, you sound just like me when you talk too fast.” 

Sherlock snorted and pretended to react negatively to her suggestion that he could have blended into an Irish man. 

“So tell me, why did you give him a book on bee culture? Seems a little boring if you ask me,” asked Lexi glancing at it.

Sherlock mimicked her voice with a petulant tone, “I wrote that some years ago. Behold the fruit of several nights and days of my watching the little gangs of bees like we watch the little gangs of London.”

Lexi giggled at him. “Oh man Sherlock you need to get another hobby.”

She missed the dark look in his eye before it was replaced with another, lighter look. 

“I do have another hobby.” 

He kissed her once more and she smiled at his awkward compliment. 

“It would be your brother who makes me wear a maid outfit for an entire week…”

“When the very government itself knocks at your door and begs of you to help her, how can we say no? Besides you have to have found it intriguing that this gentleman ousted my brother at every turn, that agents were being corrupted at every angle and my dear old brother had no idea who to trust. Besides we just stopped another war.”

Lexi stuck out her lip.

“Next time you can wear the outfit,” she grumbled, “or you can at least tell your staff to wear better outfits, sir.” This time the comment was meant for the man on the sofa who had stirred during Sherlock’s small speech. They moved together to look at him while he began to complainangrily in Korean. When Seok eventually stopped shouting at them Sherlock observed.

“Korean is such a hard yet expressive language to learn. I do so wish I had the time to learn it, a few hours probably but still those are a few hours worth keeping for other pursuits.” 

Seok eyed up the pair suspiciously but remained silent.

“I have had my eye on you for some time, Seok. You have so many things to answer for,” said Sherlock.

“Not the least the terrible taste in uniform,” added Lexi. Seok looked at her, he was baffled by her sudden ability to talk and hear. “Sorry, I’m not a deaf mute and by gum what you hear when people think you can’t hear them.” 

Seok raised himself, with difficulty, into an upright position on the sofa. 

“Let me level with you Alamont,” speaking with conviction, “if it takes me all my life I will make you suffer.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “My dear Seok, you aren’t the first to say that, the last gentleman took a short fall off a tall building.” 

“Curse you, you double traitor, have you no loyalty?” Cried Seok, his eyes glaring murder. 

“It isn’t _that_ dramatic, my fellow! As my change in dialect probably tells you, I am no American and my name is not Alamont. Alamont never existed.”

“Then who are you?”

“It is immaterial who I am but since the matter seems to interest you, Mr Seok, I should say that this is not my first run in with senior officials of the North Korean leadership. I have done a good deal of business to disrupt the North Korean plans.”

“I would wish to know who you are, who both of you are.”

“It was I who brought about the separation of Irene Adler and the late Supreme Leader. It was also I who saved the South Korean Prime Minister from your own agents.” 

Seok blanched in amazement.

“There is only one man,” he cried.

“Exactly,” concluded Sherlock, “this is my partner, Alexandra.”

“All of my information came through you! All of it, every iota! I am ruined,” Seok wailed, seemingly ignoring his previously deaf-mute maid. 

“Afraid so. Your leaders might find the timing for the show off of their nuclear forces to be a little… off.”

Seok leaned forward so that he face planted his own knees in desperation at his loss.

“Do recall though, Mr Seok that you are a sportsman above all else and when you eventually get out of prison you will be an extraordinarily old man, as will I. But you are a sportsman above all else and I know you know when to graciously lose, I know you will bare me no ill-will.”

Seok wailed into his knees. Lexi looked at Sherlock. 

“Another job well done, I’d say,” she said holding up her hand. 

Sherlock looked at her hand and pulled a disappointed face.

“Please don’t make me do that.”

“I’ve already texted Lestradé, he’s on his way to pick up Yung and then on to here. That means there’s only one thing for it!” Lexi danced on the spot, holding her hand up still.

Sherlock sighed with a small smile before he clapped his hand loudly off of hers. She pulled it away as it connected with her fingers twinkling into the air.

“Another case solved, drinks are on you!”


	5. The Good Doctor

Waitrose was not a place Lexi liked to visit. She much preferred to do her shopping online so that she had minimal contact with the outside world but Sherlock had insisted over and over that she had to get out of the flat and had become so incessant in his demands for Waitrose crusty bread that she had eventually acquiesced just to get away from him. Lexi’s blue eyes ran down the aisle of bread and she frowned. Who knew there were so many different variants of bread? She looked down at the scribbled note in her hand, Sherlock’s writing and a doctor’s scribble if ever there had been one: _pain boule._ Lexi tutted and looked back at the bread on the shelf. What even was pain boule? Was it even bread? She picked up a French baguette and looked at the label. It said baguette and Lexi raised one brow. This wasn’t a boule. She placed it back down, semi-entertained by the juxtaposition that last week she had been a mute-maid and today she literally was playing maid. Lexi made a mental check to bring the trip to Waitrose up with Sherlock, she didn’t want him falling into the same routine he used on Mrs Hudson. 

_‘I’m your landlady, not your maid.’_

_‘I’m your girlfriend, not your maid.’_

She smiled to herself as she grabbed a set of bread buns with pain boule on the label and wandered down the aisle. She liked the thought of being Sherlock’s girlfriend, as cheesy as it sounded. She grabbed instant coffee and a bottle of Pepsi Max before shuffling through the queue to the till. Ten minutes later Lexi bustled down Baker Street, her mind on fanciful thoughts, enough that she only gave the gunmetal grey Aston Martin parked outside the flat. When Lexi clicked the door shut with the side of her Doc Marten she could hear the sound of voices coming from up the stairs. She frowned. Sherlock never took clients without her presence, it had become a small hobby for them and one they didn’t like doing without each others minds to bounce off of.

“Sherlock?” She called entering the flat with the tip of her boot. 

A man sat in the ‘client’ chair opposite the fireplace. He was a well-dressed individual with striking blue eyes and tousled, pushed back blonde hair. He looked familiar but Lexi couldn’t place her finger on what it was. It clocked in her mind that it was likely his Aston Martin she had passed outside. His blue eyes locked onto her as she passed through into the kitchen, dumping the bags down on the table. Lexi didn’t like the focused look in his eyes. She looked nervously at Sherlock.

Normally they both could take a good stab at who their clients were by the state of their clothes and various mannerisms but as her blue eyes ran back over the man in the client chair, with his laid back demeanour (or rather the demeanour of a man used to controlling everything in his touch) and mass-produced tailor cut suit, Lexi couldn’t tell anything about the newcomer … except for the blonde haired man had connections and money. Lots of money.

Sherlock sat in his arm chair with his elbows on the arms and his index fingers pressed against his lips in fascination. He was in the sort of state that meant Lexi wouldn’t get much of anything from him because he was too intrigued by what was going on.

“Hello,” she mumbled.

“Pleasure to meet you, Alexandra,” replied the man with a thick Irish accent, his intense eyes never leaving her face, “I’ve waited quite some time to meet you.”

Lexi frowned and looked back at Sherlock. She didn’t like the man in front of her, he was too sure of himself and too in-the-know. Sherlock’s silent spell seemed to be broken by the small conversation and his eyes refocused on Lexi. His smile was warm and welcoming, but there was something underneath it that told Lexi she wouldn’t like where the conversation was headed. She had seen the smile used on John before in the past though he had only once used it on her, when he fed her a new kind of hallucinogenic in her tea and he was watching her like an experiment. 

“Lex. This is Doctor Adrian O’Connell, he’s come with an intriguing case that we can’t pass up.”

“Have we met?” She asked.

Dr O’Connell stood up, he was the same height as Sherlock but held the relaxed muscular physique of a man in his mid-to-late fifties. He stopped in front of Lexi, looked down on her, and stood out his thin, surgeon hands. Small facets of information were trickling through to her but not as easily as they normally would. Lexi looked at his hand sceptically before shaking it, her weak hands getting lost in the strong hands of Doctor O’Connell. He must have sensed how weak her hands were because one eyebrow raised in intrigue, though he didn’t mention it.

“No, but I do hope we’ll work well together.” 

Lexi raised her chin in a semi-nod and looked back at Sherlock who had been sitting with his eyes squinted in thought, seemingly comparing the interaction with an unknown quantity. 

“So what’s the case then?” She asked, trying to break the sudden, heavy silence. She threw the bread at Sherlock who caught it with a single hand. She knew the case must have meant something significant if even his pain boule couldn’t raise a smile. He plonked the bread on the side table and resumed his trance like contemplation. 

Dr. O’Connell was the first to speak, his lulling tones vibrating off her in a way that wasn’t quite soothing but was still altogether peaceful: a doctors voice. She had one too. 

“I have had property stolen from me, very valuable property and if it gets into the wrong hands… well…” 

Lexi raised an eyebrow sceptically.

“So go to the police,” she retorted, turning her back to unpack the rest of the groceries.

“My work and experiments have led me down a road where police involvement just won’t be acceptable,” continued the doctor. Lexi stopped what she was doing with a huff and turned on their visitor with a frown. 

“What makes you think we’d be interested?”

“Something positively cryptic and very likely illegal? What’s not to like?” Cut in Sherlock, his voice jumping up and down in excitement. Lexi shot him an unimpressed look but she knew he wasn’t entirely wrong. The Always throbbed in her brain begging to solve another unsolvable crime, she vied for danger because the mundane wasn’t thrilling enough. It’s why she and Sherlock had turned to training when they weren’t on cases — neither had yet admitted to one another they were no where near ready to say they were forever going to remain sober. Each case provided a small dose of what they craved. But it was never enough.

_‘Once an addict always an addict.’_ Said a small voice in her head. She shooed the thought away with a flick of her hand. Someone cleared their throat and Lexi’s mind refocussed on the conversation at hand. Sherlock was watching her carefully, though he didn’t ask for her permission in many things, taking on potentially life threatening cases always garnered a shared look. She looked back to the doctor. 

“Okay. You’ve got us intrigued. What is it?”

Doctor O’Connell leaned down beside his chair and pulled up a brief case. He clipped it open and pulled out a shabby, old laptop which had clearly seen better days. A few moments later and he turned the laptop screen towards them, with a video beginning to play. Lexi scanned the laptop with a frown, for someone working on something entirely illegal and obviously expensive he had terrible taste in laptops. Her green eyes noted the lack of several keys but she dismissed the thought quickly ( _irrelevant)_ and paid attention to the video. A series of graphs came up with alchemical formulae. Both Sherlock and Lexi looked at the doctor as the screen continued, but neither said anything. They continued to watch as the cell diagram expanded and changed, instead of looking at a strand of DNA they were looking at another, smaller cell. The video froze and Lexi looked at Sherlock. He was frowning at the screen. 

“I trust I do not need to explain much further?” Asked the doctor. 

“You mean you already know we understand full well you’ve been genetically modifying the ebola virus?” Lexi glowered, she didn’t like the idea of being on the hunt for a potential piece of chemical warfare. Doctor O’Connell nodded slowly, his eyes twinkled with something but Lexi only noticed it for a fraction of a second. 

“Go on, Doctor,” said Sherlock.

“Yesterday, at 10:02PM someone wiped our cameras clean, without setting off the set up alarm system and failsafe mode, entered the contained lab without opening any doors and stole the modified protein that would turn ebola into a respiratory virus. There are no open doors, nor are there windows, vents or access ways that lead into the lab and the code is changed daily. The room the protein was stored in was meant to be unbreakable without the right code. It has simply disappeared. Here take this, you may inspect the lab should you deem it necessary.”

The doctor handed Lexi a business card which she took gingerly, not wanting to touch the doctor’s hands.

Lexi let out a soft snort, “of course it did, because who wouldn’t want to weaponise ebola in the first place?”

The doctor did not laugh, Sherlock’s cheek twitched but he hid his smirk. 

“My employers are willing to pay handsomely for the safe and secure return of their work.”

“And who is your employer?” Countered Lexi, distrusting the man in front of her. Still question marks rose in her peripheral. 

Doctor O’Connell smiled at her all too politely, it set her on edge. 

“An invested party.”

“Right because we couldn’t have an illegal job without secret paying benefactors. Gotcha, subterfuge it is,” mocked Lexi. Before she could tell the doctor where to stuff his brief case, Sherlock interjected.

“We’ll be in touch, Doctor.” 

The blonde haired man dipped his head in understanding, quickly packed the laptop away and left. But not before looking through Lexi one more time. She squirmed under his gaze, a way she hadn’t felt since Moriarty. When they heard the door downstairs click shut both Lexi and Sherlock relaxed into each other’s company. 

“Well fuck me, we don’t get the easy stuff do we?” Lexi mumbled half to Sherlock and half to herself. The blonde looked at her lover across the room, he was typing on his phone and Lexi knew he would be gone until he had finished perusing the dark web for hints and leads.

“Wake me when you find something,” she mumbled, turning down towards the bedroom with a yawn. 

Sherlock let out a small grunt in reply but otherwise didn’t respond.

It wasn’t until Lexi had gone that Sherlock glanced momentarily towards the fireplace before looking down at his phone with a furrowed brow.

 


	6. Dobhail Systems and Science

Dobhail Systems and Science was everything one would expect from a science lab; a large, obtusely structured building stood in the middle of Dublin’s Georgian architecture with its white washed walls creating a sheen against the grey canvas of the city. Lexi pondered the name as she and Sherlock walked through the minimalist reception, she didn’t know Irish Gaelic — if anything she avoided anything to do with Ireland. Apart from her accent (not overly her choice) she went to great lengths to forget her origins (after all an abusive father and a scorned mother weren’t badges of honour to wear proudly) so the meaning made no sense to her. She liked it even less that they were in Ireland. Sherlock never left the flat, let alone London, for anything less than a 7. To have left the country meant that this case meant more for Sherlock than he let on. Lexi didn’t say anything to him about it, she knew he would speak when he was ready. 

“ID please,” mumbled a woman at the desk, her head didn’t even look up from the computer she was working on. Lexi raised an eyebrow but she didn’t say anything. Sherlock was too busy looking around so the blonde haired woman dipped her thin fingers into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Lexi opened Sherlock’s wallet in the search for identification and only managed half a sigh when she discovered he had none. The flight to Ireland had been a private jet provided by Dobhail Systems and Science so they hadn’t needed passports or ID, in fact, this was the first time she had even thought about any kind of formal identification Sherlock possessed. Lexi slapped her own drivers licence down on the counter before clicking in Sherlock’s face.

“You don’t have any ID.”

Sherlock looked at her over his phone, his thumbs never ceasing to type.

“I don’t need it.”

Lexi pinched her nose.

“Obviously this is one of those times where you do.” 

Sherlock shrugged before putting his phone away. 

“I don’t have nor need ID. I was invited here, as were you I might add,” Sherlock continued. The woman looked at him over her glasses and chewed strenuously on her gum, she looked back down at her computer screen before sliding Lexi’s ID with less than vested interest. Lexi twisted her lip slightly at Sherlock’s audacity but otherwise said nothing as they were escorted through two steel security doors and into a white washed hallway by the same woman who had been behind the reception desk. The woman was a little taller than Lexi but seemed to tower over her with her six inch stilettos, she was a pretty thing with long brown hair and doe-y eyes that were accentuated with intense kohl eyeliner and fake eyelashes; Lexi wondered how much the woman was paid for her looks rather than her skills as an assistant. The woman kept flashing looks at Sherlock every so often who was yet to look up from his phone, Lexi felt a twang of jealousy as the woman continued to check out Sherlock. Lexi cleared her throat and the receptionist sighed, chewed pronouncedly on her gum and looked at her with disinterest. 

“Can you explain to us what happened?” Asked Lexi trying to steer the conversation into a more professional manner.

The woman chewed on her gum, blew a bubble and let it pop before replying.

“Nope,” she mumbled, emphasising the ‘p’ before continuing to look at Sherlock. Lexi raised her eyebrows briefly before pushing herself closer to Sherlock who eventually noticed the exchange and dropped his phone in his pocket. 

“You’ve nothing of interest about the theft?” Asked Sherlock, his velvety tones bouncing around the room. He pushed himself closer to Lexi, so that their hands were brushing but not quite touching — the contact sent a shiver through Lexi. 

At Sherlock’s voice the woman turned her head towards him with vested interest. 

“Oh well, I mean we had our own investigators in the room and they found nothing but—“

“Oh well that’s great, I do love it when the crime scene has been cross contaminated,” interrupted Sherlock his voice bitter at the prospect of having, in his mind, bumbling idiots spoiling a perfectly acceptable crime scene. 

The lab was locked down when they entered it, it was so clean Lexi had to wonder if they had cleaned the area after the theft — there were no out of place canisters, scuff marks on the floor or even a conical flask misplaced. The receptionist had left them at the door to the lab without a word, her click clacking of her heels echoing down the hall as she went.

Lexi and Sherlock had a system in place for occasions such as these; they spread out in the room with Sherlock taking the left and Lexi taking the right. Sherlock whacked out his mini magnifying glass and got to work on the obvious shelf space where the missing virus was meant to have been. Lexi looked around the perimeter of the room, looking at the seamless roof and wall and where they joined — there was no obvious tampering. In fact there were no areas of weakness in the room at all: the walls were the same shiny white-wash as the rest of Dobhail Systems and Science and the floor panels were quite literally cemented to the floor, there were no grates or air conditioning units in the room which connected the room to the outside world. Had they been shut in there wouldn’t be a great deal of air to keep them going. 

A clicking noise in her peripheral vision distracted Lexi from her thoughts, Sherlock had slid shut his magnifying glass with a frown, seemingly he had found nothing out of the ordinary and it frustrated him.

“No one walks in to a room without using the door,” Lexi commented, looking back to the ceiling, “there’s no way the ceiling or floor could come away.”

Sherlock tilted his head, as if thinking, while he looked at the counter space. 

“No.”

Lexi frowned and looked at Sherlock debating whether Sherlock was talking to her or whether he was talking to himself. 

“Lex give me a hand.”

Sherlock dropped his magnifying glass back in his pocket and leaned against the counter, it didn’t budge but he waved Lexi over to give him a hand anyway. They pushed but the counter didn’t move. 

“I told you, it’s cemented into the floor,” Lexi mumbled. Sherlock squatted next to the corner of the counter and looked at the floor. There were no scuff marks on the floor but Sherlock paused as he ran his fingers along the floor. 

“Feel,” Sherlock mumbled. Lexi acquiesced and ran her fingers along the floor. Against the smooth grain of the floor were sharp edges that bowed upwards as if the counter had caught against the floor on numerous occasions. 

Lexi stood back up and looked around the room, she noted that there was a light switch by the door but the lights were automated. She found it most peculiar that such a clean environment would had a light switch which would harbour a great deal of bacteria. Lexi walked over to the switch, leaving Sherlock staring at the floor in thought and feeling around the counter for an obvious switch. Lexi paused in front of the switch, staring at it thoughtfully. 

_‘What could go wrong with pressing a switch?’_ She thought as she pressed it in. The door into the lab swung shut with a pressurised ‘vwoosh’. Sherlock twisted to look at her with a ‘what did you do’ look. 

Before she could defend herself the counter began to vibrate and then it began to move away from Sherlock. The counter slid to the left leaving a hatch in the floor with obvious signs of wear and tear compared to the lab. Lexi moved to stand next to Sherlock. The door had been locked behind them and the hatch in front of them clicked open.

“Well that was easy,” Lexi mumbled staring into the dark. She bent over to get a better look before looking back at Sherlock who was standing peering into the hole just next to her. Another clicking noise from her peripheral attracted her attention back to the hole. When she looked back with a squint into the dark, Lexi felt a hand grab the base of her neck and pull her into the darkness. 


	7. Dobhail

_It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back, It's like a whirlwind inside of my head, It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within, It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin._

________

_Alex took in a sharp breath as the drugs coursed through her vein. The needle dangled precariously from her arm as she relaxed into the rush of the high, her breathing mellowing out in time with her heartbeat. This is what she was best at, being a drug addict, and she revelled in the feeling as it danced in time with her soul. Physically she was slumped on the corner of her bed, splayed out like some kind of ornament rather than a human being. Her mind writhed in an explosion of colours and was blissfully quiet for the first time in a long time, like a spectrum the colours levelled out and stopped throbbing. For Alexandra Stuart paradise laid at the empty end of a syringe. She didn’t even notice when the door to her flat opened._

_____

“Lexi! Wake up!”

A voice pulled her from her thoughts and Lexi sat up abruptly. They were in the hatchway in the ground, behind her a set of ladders into the light stood against the wall. Sherlock crouched over her with a slightly intrigued, slightly worried expression on his face. The sudden movement sent a shooting pain through Lexi’s head and with a grimace she grabbed her head. Sherlock pulled her hand away and looked at the side of her forehead, it didn’t take a genius to notice the blood trickling from the side of her temple. Sherlock wiped away the blood and smirked at her.

“You fell.” 

Lexi frowned, remembering the grip on her neck dragging her into the darkness.

“No, I was dragged in. There’s someone else here,” muttered Lexi, her eyes darting to the shadows, perceiving each shadow as an invisible enemy. Sherlock leaned forward and held her face with his hands.

“You hit your head. You blacked out. There’s no one here,” Sherlock frowned and shone his phone flashlight in her eyes, “your pupils are huge, I think you’ve gotten concussion from the fall.”

Lexi pulled her face away from Sherlock’s hands with a scowl, “I was pulled in,” she exclaimed once more. Lexi didn’t wait for Sherlock to respond, instead she tried to stand up but felt a wave of dizziness before she could reach standing height. Lexi staggered into Sherlock slightly, fighting off the dizziness before righting herself. She hadn’t noticed Sherlocks hand on her back keeping her steady. The tunnel spanned further than either of them could see and they were only able to see each other because the light from the lab illuminated the ladder way. Lexi placed a tentative step forward, determined to discover the source of her fall. Her brain swam with thoughts and nausea but she didn’t complain to Sherlock, he followed behind her as if he were worried she would fall at any moment. Eventually the light at the beginning of the tunnel began to dwindle so Sherlock and Lexi used their phone torches to light their way (praise be to technology), the tunnel was not the white wash that the lab had been — it was a cement tunnel, dank and dripping with water from the pipes that ran along the ceiling. This, Lexi decided, had to be a maintenance tunnel that had otherwise been forgotten about by the current inhabitants of the lab. Perhaps they did know and this was a test, though Lexi didn’t see the logic in that. 

Her eyes focussed on the dark ahead, watching the shadows for turns in the tunnel. Out of the corner of her eye, a little way down the tunnel, something moved. She saw it only briefly but the movement was big enough to be a human, rather than a rat. Lexi stopped abruptly with Sherlock bumping into her back, his hand tightened against her back but he didn’t take it away. 

“Did you see that?” Lexi asked, her voice barely a whisper. 

“Yes… I don’t think our thief got very far,” whispered Sherlock, his eyes staring at the last place of movement. They moved forward, trying to make their footsteps quieter. Lexi mused to herself that someone had dragged her down in the first place, it was likely they already knew they were in the tunnels. Flashes came into her brain, of Moriarty dragging her down into the void like he had that day one year ago, the darkness was playing tricks on her concussion. Lexi shook her head slightly and stepped further into the dark, her eyes trying their best to focus on the dark. The shadow moved further down the tunnel before flitting further away; Lexi called out for whoever, or whatever it was, to stop. In response the shadow gained in the speed and Lexi and Sherlock took off down the tunnel after it. A wave of dizziness overcame Lexi as her feet pounded against the floor, she skittered to a halt and felt Sherlock press past her. He half turned to look at her but Lexi waved him past, taking a moment to let her brain organise itself. Sherlock’s coat disappeared in the darkness, Lexi strained to see in the darkness but ended up making her nausea worse. She leaned to one side against the wall, feeling the bile rise in her throat, and threw up. It wasn’t much because she’d refused food on the private jet, but the regurgitated coffee did nothing for the oncoming headache she felt pressing on the corner recesses of her temples. 

Lexi felt something push on the side of her back and she jumped slightly, her mind flashing with invisible hands and Moriarty’s face. Sherlock’s familiar face appeared in front of her own and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

Sherlock had a grimace on his face and he had a slight sheen of sweat on his hairline from chasing whoever was in the shadows down the tunnel.

“The tunnels branch out into three separate ones, I lost track half way down the middle tunnel, whoever it was knows their way around.”

Lexi nodded, her hands back on her knees for support.

“We should spread out and figure out where our thief go,” said Lexi, focussing on her breathing. Sherlock crouched down next to her a worried expression on his face.

“Pointless whoever it is they are long gone by now, and I think these tunnels stretch miles. We’re more suited to getting your head checked and then heading back down with torches to find out where the tunnels lead.”

____

A light shone into Lexi’s eyes uncompromisingly, she winced at the glare of the doctor’s flashlight before waving it away irritatedly. 

“I told you; I’m fine!” Mumbled Lexi both at Sherlock and the doctor. They were sat in the medical wing of Dobhail Systems and Science, Lexi was perched on the edge of a bench, her hands holding her up and her head being held by a doctor with scrunched eyes, Sherlock stood on his iPhone silently in the corner.

“Better safe than sorry,” responded Sherlock, not looking up from his phone. Lexi felt a wave of nausea roll over her and she pinched her nose.

“It’s safe to say the knock to your head has caused a significant concussion, you’ll likely have nausea and a hell of a headache for a few days. Try to rest, and don’t overexert yourself if at all possible.”

Lexi nodded slowly, she looked around the room with a discerning eye.

“Say, why does a science company need a medical lab like this? I get science but a doctor on site?”

The doctor smiled politely. 

“It’s significantly easier having a standby doctor for any of our staff should they need it,” explained the doctor, turning his attention to paperwork. She watched him write down a few notes sceptically. 

“And why would Dobhail Systems and Science need staff? …Occupational hazard?” She probed, Sherlock looked over the top of his phone with a raised brow, her questions had piqued his interest. The doctor sniffed nonchalantly.

“I’m afraid that’s above both of our pay grades.”

Lexi smirked and nodded. Whatever happened in the building wasn’t entirely above board, this Lexi knew, but for it to be dangerous? Now Lexi was intrigued. The doctor’s pocket buzzed and he pulled out a pager, he checked it before putting the paperwork into his white jacket pocket.

“Excuse me,” he muttered cordially before leaving the room. 

Lexi leaned back and took a deep breath in, fighting the rolls of nausea coming over her. Sherlock pocketed his phone before holding out his hand.

“Fancy a stroll?”

Lexi grinned at him before sliding down off the examination table.

“If by stroll you mean snoop, then by all means lead the way!”

____

Much of the building was identical to the halls they had previously walked, but Lexi and Sherlock managed to navigate with some confidence without getting too lost. After a few wrong turns and ducking out of the sight of any employees they stumbled into Lexi and Sherlock ended up outside a door entitled ‘Research’. They looked at each other knowingly before they pushed the door open. Given the high end tech furnishing the building Lexi was surprised when the door swung open. There was a fob system but it had, for whatever reason, been turned off. Lexi didn’t complain at the ability to let herself in. The lab was empty, save for a few monkeys in cages with plastic screens on the opposite wall. They were locked in small cages, Lexi tried her best to ignore them — she wasn’t an empathetic person by nature but animals being tested in the name of science didn’t sit well with her. There were plenty of knobs in the world to test on. Lexi turned her attention to the charts on the wall and ran her gaze over them, trying her best to ignore the shards of pain attacking her brain. Spreadsheets and charts had alchemical notes written all over them, with variations on changing the formulae. Lexi had enough medical training to understand them and she didn’t need to translate for Sherlock, she watched as he rubbed his hands excitedly (like a child in a sweet shop) reading the papers attached to the wall. 

“They weren’t just working on ebola, it seems,” remarked Lexi, her gaze turning back to the sheets on the wall. 

“Well, well they have been busy. MARV too?” Sherlock pondered mostly to himself. 

Lexi looked to the lab desks, bunsen burners, conical flasks and a set up much like Sherlock’s own kitchen chemistry set littered each table. Whatever they had been working on wasn’t likely to be under the Government’s approved list of scientific research. Lexi didn’t think Mycroft would approve of biological warfare without his knowledge. Unless he already knew.

“Do you think Mycroft knows about this place?” Lexi asked.

Sherlock looked over from the charts with a perplexed look.

“Maybe, I’m not sure. I’d most likely know if he was working on it, but then, my brother does have a few secrets.”

They both paused at the sound of someone clearing their throat behind them. Lexi turned at the same time as Sherlock towards the door. Dr O’Connell stood in a well kept suit flanked by two men in black suits. It didn’t take a genius to figure out they were security. 

“Mr Holmes, Ms Stuart, I hope you found our building to be… accommodating?” 

Lexi knew it was a rhetorical question. 

“I also trust that you know wandering around a prohibited area isn’t particularly becoming of a person paid by this company.”

Sherlock shrugged.

“I wouldn’t be a very good investigator if I didn’t investigate.”

O’Connell smiled the same slippery, coy smile he had in London.

“Gentlemen, please show Mr Holmes and his companion to the reception. This place _does_ turn you around.”

Lexi felt the presence of a security guard push her towards the door. Lexi held up her hands, pulling away from the security guard irately. She and Sherlock were funnelled out the door and down the corridor with the security pushing on either side of them. 

“I hope you didn’t see anything that would compromise your position under our employment?” Called O’Connell down the corridor. Lexi turned and held up her hands in a shrug.

“Concussion, Dr O’Connell, couldn’t focus on anything if I tried.”

The doctor watched them leave with an impenetrable look on his face. Lexi wasn’t sure if she should have been concerned, the feeling that O’Connell was a predator like Moriarty crept into her mind but it was quickly shot down by waves of nausea. Lexi turned and followed Sherlock out of the corridor. They were quickly returned to the reception where the woman with her chewing gum sat behind the desk. 

“Dr O’Connell says we’re to take you back to the airstrip, make sure you get on the jet back to London. You’ll be home by tea time,” said the security guard with a false smile. Lexi sneered back but said nothing and Sherlock whipped out his phone again.

_____

By 7 o’clock they were back at Baker Street. Lexi stood over a pan of pasta as it heated on the hob, she ran her hand over the lump on her head and winced slightly at the feeling. It puzzled her as to why no one seemed any the wiser about the tunnels underneath Dobhail Systems and Science, nor the fact that there had been minimal security in the building at all. It was almost as if Dr O’Connell had wanted them to snoop about, since they were stopped at exactly the right moment. Again the feeling rose in her stomach: uncertainty of their employer, nay, fear of her employer. The gaze O’Connell had pierced through enough of her to make her shy away and it reminded her of Moriarty’s gaze. If not a little more fierce, Moriarty had some allure — Dr O’Connell on the other hand had none. 

Sherlock had been mostly silently on the trip back, spending more time on his phone and making calls than he had been in her. But now they were home (she still liked that word, home) he spent most of his time sitting on the kitchen island stool watching her intently. 

“I told you to stop staring,” she said, sipping her wine slowly. 

Sherlock ran his hands through his hair in thought.

“What do you think of Dobhail?” 

Lexi turned to Sherlock, her back to the pan. She thought about Dobhail and their day.

“Wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you think it was too convenient? We got there, a picture perfect crime scene that took us no time at all to find the lead. Open doors?” 

Sherlock nodded his head from side to side as if weighing up her opinion.

“Something doesn’t sit right with me Sherlock, it almost feels staged.”

“I felt the same way. I did some checking with Mycroft about the stolen virus. It would seem that there is a missing chemical agent, one that Mycroft’s contacts in the black market have heard rumours about but there’s no trace of it anywhere. Whoever has it is holding on to it,” Sherlock mused before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it absent-mindedly. Lexi ignored The Always telling her that Sherlock had started openly smoking again, it should have been a warning sign for her but her brain hurt to much to make much sense. 

“As for our good Doctor, I believe there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. We’ll have to do some more digging on him before the case is over.” 

Lexi nodded. She liked the idea of finding out what the Doctor was hiding, but she didn’t like the idea of coming under the gaze of O’Connell once more. She turned her gaze back to the pasta and stirred it without much thought. Neither of them were hungry but she figured the best thing to do for both of them was make sure they ate, for they were never feeding themselves properly. Lexi looked at the pasta, chewing on her bottom lip.

“You’re smoking again,” she commented, her tone level. 

Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Old habits die hard, long day.” 

Lexi nodded silently, she didn’t like his answer but before she could tease more out of him Mrs Hudson appeared at the door.

“Yoohoo! Hello dearies, you’ve got a letter. It turned up today but you weren’t in. Jetting all over England I’ve heard. Must be nice, did you go anywhere nice?”

Sherlock plucked the letter out of Mrs Hudson’s hand, waving her away with a flick of his hand. Mrs Hudson ushered herself over to the door. 

“Thanks Mrs Hudson,” mumbled Sherlock, closing the door on her face. Lexi heard her tut from behind the door but she otherwise didn’t say anything else.

“Lex.”

Lexi turned to Sherlock. She paused when she saw his face, it was gravely and pale. Lexi looked at the envelope in his hand. It was written on what looked like a cream birthday card style envelope, no bigger than an A5 card. Lexi took it from Sherlock’s thin hand, who in return took a drag on his cigarette nervously (she noted his hand twitched slightly, as if he already knew who it was from). The envelope was addressed to her, to 221B. Someone she knew had sent her it because no one else knew where she lived and it certainly wasn’t from a bigger company who used white mass produced envelopes. Lexi peeled the edges off slowly. 

“Be careful,” murmured Sherlock, his voice on edge. Lexi met his gaze before slowly peeling away the edges. She held the envelope away from her face, just in case. But the inside of the envelope only had a crappy birthday card. It had an overly sentimental hedgehog with a birthday hat on that said: ’happy birthday’ in glittery writing. Lexi frowned. It wasn’t her birthday for a good month or two at least. 

She opened the card. A bullet fell out onto the floor, Lexi stepped back and watched it roll away. She recognised the bullet. Sherlock picked it up before flinching visibly. Lexi took the bullet from him before dropping it again with a gasp. It was the bullet that had lodged into John’s brain all those months ago. It was unmistakably the same bullet fired from the gun she had had on the rooftop of St. Bart’s. 

“What does the card say?” Sherlock whispered, barely audible. He looked physically hurt by the sight of the bullet.

Lexi looked at the card:

_‘The Revenge That Is Postponed Is Not Forgotten._

_M. ’_


	8. The Ghost Driver

Sherlock shoved another ginger nut biscuit into his mouth, his spare hand tapping on his phone. It was his second one in 30 seconds. A third biscuit disappeared wholly into his mouth and he sat with a smile on his face as he munched his way through the ginger goodness. Lexi sat chewing on her finger as another biscuit disappeared into his mouth. 

“Really?”

Sherlock paused mid-chew. 

“What,” he asked, bits of ginger nut dropping from his lips. Lexi resisted the urge to hit him.

“Someone sent me a death threat and you eat a whole packet of ginger nuts?”

“I love ginger nuts.”

Lexi resisted the urge again to hit him.

Three days had passed since she’d received the card, nothing had happened of course, Sherlock had continued as if he hadn’t been there when the bullet had fallen out on to the floor in the kitchen. Another ginger nut disappeared into the detective’s mouth, crumbs fell onto his camel dressing gown. 

“What are we gonna do?” She asked pensively.

Sherlock smiled, crossing his legs and dancing his foot, he didn’t look up from his phone. 

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock looked up, shocked, from his phone as if he had just remembered Lexi was there.

“Hmm?”

“I said what are we going to do?”

Sherlock paused, lowered his phone and shrugged.

“What a target always does,” Sherlock said with a smile, “we wait for death to come knocking.”

Lexi blanched, she ground her teeth irately.

“So what do we do until then? Solve cases?”

“Yes,” he remarked, raising his eyebrows as if in surprise at how simple the answer was and that he had had to explain it to Lexi. 

Lexi went to respond, a frown forming on her face, but she was interrupted by the door rapping. Instantly on edge, Lexi looked nervously expecting the mysterious ‘M’ to appear from behind the door. Instead Lestradé appeared at the door, a smile on his face — far too cheerful for the Chief Detective Inspector of the NSY.

“I have a belter for you two,” he said giddily.

Sherlock clapped his hands together once, as if pleased at the detective inspectors timely arrival. 

“Oh great, that’s just wonderful,” mumbled Lexi, lighting a cigarette with a shaky hand. Lestradé frowned with worry.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh she’s fine,” said Sherlock, interrupting Lestradé. Lexi waved a hand dismissing Lestradé who turned back towards Sherlock, the detective for hire was looking at his expectantly. “The case?”

Lestradé righted his shirt and continued.

“Get this: it was David Welsborough’s fiftieth birthday. His wife had thrown him a surprise birthday party when David receives a phone call from his son, Charlie. Now his son’s phone call was choppy because Charlie was in Tibet, supposedly travelling the world. He wished his dad a happy birthday, and asked him to take a picture of his car. The car was empty, but he wanted an image of the power ranger attached to the bonnet of his car for a bet. David Welsborough goes out takes a picture for his son but gets cut off.”

Sherlock had his eyes shut and his hands steepled under his chin. Lexi took a drag from her cigarette.

“And?”

“That was it for a week, and then…” Lestradé paused, seemingly visibly shivering once.

Sherlock smiled, Lexi didn’t understand why or if she had missed something.

“What?” 

“Something mental happens,” Lestradé said, with his own little smile, “drunk driver completely off his knocker, coppers are chasing him and he turns into the drive of the Welsborough house to try and get away. Unfortunately the car smashes straight into Charlie’s parked car. The crashed car cuts the petrol line of Charlie’s car and it explodes, rather spectacularly apparently. The drunk guy survived; they managed to pull him out, but when they put the fire out and examine the damage…”

Lexi leaned her neck forward expectantly.

“Let me guess Charlie was in the car.”

Lestradé nodded at Lexi.

“A week before the car was empty, and a week later the poor bastard has been found body burnt at the wheel. DNA all checks out.”

Sherlock made a pleased noise from the corner, Lexi shot a grumpy look at him for his lack of social skills. It seemed Lestradé was pleased with Sherlock’s reaction however because he smiled too.

“Thought you might like this case,” he said.

“Do you have the labs?” Asked Lexi, stubbing out her cigarette on the kitchen counter. 

Lestradé reached into his briefcase and pulled out a load of papers. Lexi took them greedily and turned to pour over them.

“Why so important? You wouldn’t normally get a turn around on labs for a week yet,” Lexi asked, her eyes briefly flicking up to the detective inspector.

Lestradé nodded in understanding.

“He’s the son of a cabinet minister —“

“And? Who cares?” interrupted Sherlock, “tell me about the seat of the car.”

Lestradé blanched at Sherlock, seemingly annoyed the curly haired man had beaten him to his own story. He passed over a folder to Sherlock who glanced over it.

“Two types of vinyl present,” explained Lestradé. Sherlock smiled again.

“Was it his own car?”

“Yeah, not very flash — he was a student.”

Sherlock shot a condescending look at Lestradé, Lexi could imagine him saying that the kind of car was a moot point. After all a cabinet minister’s son could have afforded a much nicer car. It was Lexi’s turn to let out a chuckle. 

“Oh how interesting,” she mumbled, eyes panning over the coroner’s report. Sherlock looked up like a child straining to see above his own eye level. 

“What?”

“Charlie Welsborough had already been dead a week before the crash. So he had been there the night of the party.” 

Sherlock snapped a ginger nut biscuit in half. 

“Is it my birthday? This is such a _fun_ case!” He sang at the top of his both. Lexi narrowed her eyes in suspicion, Sherlock was too happy. Lestradé momentarily squinted at Sherlock too before looking at Lexi and then back at Sherlock again.

“Uh, yeah, right. Well, if you’re interested I wouldn’t mind a hand.”

“One condition,” said Sherlock.

“What?” 

“You take all the credit.”

“What? Why?”

Lexi looked up from the lab reports.

“Because if I solve them all, it gets boring.”

“We, Sherlock, we,” corrected Lexi.

Sherlock glanced at the woman briefly with a half smile. 

“Yeah you say that but then it goes in the news and then you get all the credit anyway.”

Lexi snorted at the Inspector’s reaction. Sherlock looked perplexed.

“It makes me look like a right prima donna who insists on getting credit for something he didn’t do.”

“Touchy touchy, Greg,” said Lexi with a grin briefly forgetting about the weight on her shoulders. She lit another cigarette as the feeling crashed back into her, her smile dwindled and she took a long drag. 

“ _You_ take all the glory, thanks,” finished Lestradé picking up his brief case.

“Okay,” said Sherlock all too ready to respond. 

Lestradé sighed.

“Just solve the bloody thing, will you?”

Lestradé began to collect the paperwork back off of Lexi as Sherlock spoke again.

“No problem Giles.”

Lexi and Lestradé looked at the detective. He smiled.

“Just kidding,” he said. Sherlock looked back at Lexi as Lestradé turned away to pack away his things. He mouthed ‘what is it’ silently at Lexi, she smiled before mouthing ‘Greg’ back. Sherlock tilted his head, he obviously hadn’t understood her. He mouthed ‘what’ at her, to which she pointedly mouthed ‘Greg’ back at him. Sherlock nodded when he eventually understood. Just as he looked back down Lestradé looked at him again. He caught the nod and looked suspiciously at Lexi who smiled politely.

“So are we gonna take a bet then?” She asked him sweetly.

“Sorry?”

“A bet, on what happened to the Welsborough lad.”

Lestradé looked at her even more blankly than he had at Sherlock earlier.

“You know what happened?”

“I have a theory.”

Sherlock leaned forward in his chair out of interest.

“I bet you’re wrong.”

Lexi looked at Sherlock with a cutting twinkle in her eye.

“You wish.”

 

_______________

 

The Welsborough estate was a massive white country manor, not unlike many of the houses on the street where they lived. The interior of the house was just as resplendent as the outside of the house, Sherlock, Lexi and Lestradé passed a giant double staircase made of marble and oak bannisters. Lexi resisted the urge to whistle as she listened to Lestradé nag Sherlock.

“The Welsboroughs are pretty cut up about their son so go easy, alright Sherlock?”

“As always,” Sherlock responded.

Lexi half chuckled but the smile dropped as a man guarding a closed door leaned to open it. The door opened into a plush living room. She could tell there was a level of posh that she wasn’t used to — there was no TV in the Welboroughs living room. Instead an over exuberant ornament stood in the middle of a coffee table in between two tailor made settees. Lexi watched as Sherlock took Mrs Welsborough’s arm with feigned condolences, he shook her hand at the same time.

“Mr and Mrs Welsborough. I am really most terribly sorry to hear about your daughter.”

“Son,” snapped both Lexi and Lestradé at the same time. 

“Son,” said Sherlock instantly correcting his mistake.

Lestradé stepped in front of Sherlock and shook both of the Welsboroughs’ hands.

“Mr and Mrs Welsborough this is Mr Sherlock Holmes and Ms Lexi Stuart.”

Both of the Welsborough’s looked at Lexi and Sherlock simultaneously, Mrs Welsborough’s eyes were strained and red it was obvious to Lexi she had been crying. Her husband was no better, except he was a tad more reigned in on the crying front. She smiled conscientiously but said nothing.

“Thank you very much for coming. We’ve heard a great deal about the both of you. If anyone can throw a light into this darkness we believe it to be both of you.”

Sherlock nodded once and let Lestradé talk over him as he examined the room. Lexi watched as he stopped in front of an image of Margaret Thatcher. Lexi looked at it with a curious eye, it had been moved slightly but otherwise had nothing of significance. Lexi looked back at Lestradé who had stopped talking. The room had gone quiet. Lexi smiled politely at the Welsborough’s.

“Excuse me a moment.”

As Lexi crossed the room to meet Sherlock the Welsborough’s sat down. 

“Sherlock…”

Sherlock was hunched over an image of Margaret Thatcher and a younger David Welsborough with pinpoint eyes. His entire demeanour had changed from that morning, from when he had been munching on ginger nut biscuits. The same fear that had rippled through him not a day before when he had seen John’s bullet roll across the floor. She hit him hard on the shoulder and he jumped back to attention. 

“By the pricking of my thumbs…” he mumbled under his breath. Lexi frowned at the Macbeth reference before looking back to the Welsborough’s. Mr Welsborough had approached them from behind and was trying to, politely, lean to see what Sherlock was doing. 

“Who is this next to you?” Sherlock asked, turning quickly to David Welsborough. 

The cabinet minister frowned, trying to figure out if Sherlock was being funny.

“It’s, uh, it’s Maggie T.” 

Sherlock stared.

“Margaret Thatcher. I have a bit of a thing for her. Big hero of mine,” explained David like he was explaining to a simpleton. 

“Who?”

David frowned.

“Uh the leader of the Government?”

“And a female…?”

Mr Welsborough tilted his head to the side as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

Lexi frowned, Sherlock was socially inept (she recalled John once telling her about how Sherlock didn’t believe in the solar system) but he wasn’t as incapable as failing to remember that his elder brother was in love with Maggie T, both the woman and the regime. Mr Welsborough, seemingly sated with what they were doing, disappeared to sit back with his wife.

“Why are you stalling, Sherlock?” She asked, probing past the bullshit. 

“Thinking…”

“It’s the gap isn’t it?” She pointed to the table where the picture was sat.

“It’s the gap,” he confirmed, “it’s wrong. Everything else is perfectly ordered, managed…”

Lestradé cleared his throat but Lexi and Sherlock remained hunched over.

“This whole house is one big OCD trip, Sherlock, so why the gap?”

Sherlock stood up and turned back around to David and his wife, who were sitting on the edge of the settee startled at their sudden curtail in conversation.

“My apologies and respects. This figurine is routinely repositioned after the cleaner’s been in. This picture is straightened every day,” he pointed to the image of Thatcher, “yet this ugly gap remains. Something is missing and only recently.

“A bust, by any chance?” Lexi asked David Welsborough.

“How did you know?”

“What does any of this have to do with Charlie?!” exclaimed Mrs Welsborough.

Lexi dipped her head apologetically. Sherlock was tapping on his phone again.

“Did you have a break in recently?” Asked Sherlock.

“Some little shit broke in and smashed the bust on the floor outside,” David explained over his wife, “we guessed it was just a teenage prank.”

“But why just that bust? Clearly there’s other memorabilia of her… wonderfully positioned face,” said Sherlock, struggling to find the best adjective for the old PM.

David shrugged and Mrs Welsborough stood up. 

“This is clearly a waste of time, Mr Holmes!” She snapped in sadness.

“Your son, Mrs Welsborough. We know what happened to him,” interrupted Lexi softly. 

Mr and Mrs Welsborough sat forward, their eyes filling with hope. Sherlock looked to Lexi momentarily, he knew that she was right to put him back on topic. They had had a hunch since the beginning of the case, when Lestradé had come to them. But it was worth speaking to the Welsborough’s first before jumping to any conclusions. It was time for Sherlock to do what he did best: explain. Lexi knew she could have, and she would have, except she knew they had expected Sherlock Holmes and accomplice, not Lexi Stuart and accomplice. 

“It was your fiftieth birthday, Mr Welborough. Lexi tells me in the social world thats a big event… and you were disappointed that your son wasn’t here to celebrate it. Yes?”

“Well yes, he was in Tibet.”

“No,” said Sherlock instantly, “he wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” 

“It was meant to be a surprise, the trick.”

“What trick?”

“Lexi?” Said Sherlock.

Lexi cleared her throat, desperately wishing she had a cigarette.

“He was never in Tibet. There were two types of vinyl in the report from the burned out car. One was the car seat, the other was a very, very close vinyl replica that Charlie used to hide behind…” Mr Welsborough buried his head in his hands, “it would seem that when you went to take a picture you were meant to see Charlie behind the seat… ‘the trick’ … that was his surprise to you.”

Sherlock took over.

“You said in the police report that your son had felt sick on the phone when you spoke to him, it is my hypothesis that that’s when the seizure, or something along those lines, hit. Charlie died at that moment and instead of seeing him you saw just the chair. No one had any cause to go near the car, so Charlie lay there for a week before the crash and explosion. The vinyl costume burned away leaving Charlie’s quite dead body behind.”

Mrs Welsborough broke down into tears, her knees giving out from under her. David Welsborough bent down to comfort her. Lexi heard an unusual sentence from Sherlock.

“Really I am very sorry, Mr Welsborough, Mrs Welsborough.” 

As they left the room leaving the two parents grieving, Lestradé grinned at Lexi.

“So you’re just as good as him?”

“Huh?” Responded Lexi, startled at the random question.

“The car, the kid. That was impressive work considering you knew the answer before we left Baker Street,” explained Lestradé.

“Oh, well, I had to be sure by speaking to them and seeing the actual drive and collision point. Pictures only get you so far. I knew as soon as we spoke to the Welsborough’s.”

Sherlock waved his hand nonchalantly past Lexi and Lestradé like he was batting away the conversation.

“Why are we still talking about this? We should be looking at the new line of enquiry thats opened.”

“What? The missing bust?” She asked, her face pulling into a puzzled expression.

“Quite. It’s a loose thread and I do so hate loose threads.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Lestradé, “you think its related to the Welsborough boy?”

“No,” said Sherlock, “I think it has something to do with old revenge.”

Lexi lit another cigarette as they left the building, she didn’t like the line of thought Sherlock was travelling down. It made her heart flutter in anxiety, she took a long drag on the cigarette to steady herself. Lestradé said something about Sherlock talking a load of shit again. Lexi said nothing as they got into the back of Lestradé’s car. Sherlock and Lestradé were exchanging a light hearted banter between each other. But all Lexi could think about was John’s heavy body thudding off the rooftop of St Bart’s. 

Old revenge was coming and there was nothing Lexi could do to stop it.  


	9. Red Twine

Sherlock followed a red piece of string with his finger. It ran from the far end of the living room (covering the spray painted smiley face John had created some years earlier) to the fireplace mirror, which was really quite a sizeable length of string if one considered the size of Holmes’ living room. Sherlock ducked under other threads that lead to different places in the room and stepped over ones that danced between various bits of furniture.

For Sherlock, they all had essential meaning, each one linked a thread in the real world to a thread in his mind palace. 

_In his mind the threads were even bigger in number, they spanned through the ornate halls of his childhood, past the memories of Redbeard and well on past the padded cell of Moriarty. Everywhere in his mind had a home, except for the red thread. It threatened to capitulate him, make him fall underneath its weight yet still he persevered because at the end of the threads stood Lexi, she looked the way she did when he had first met her: smudged kohl eyeliner under emerald eyes, pink candy floss hair and skin so pale it looked like snow. She never spoke, nor did she ever look at Sherlock, she just stood — waiting. He didn’t know what she was waiting for but she was waiting, just like Moriarty was waiting in his cell._

Sherlock stopped just short of the mirror, he looked at the image plastered to the glass. It was a picture, a sidelong shot, of Adrian O’Connell walking flanked by bodyguards to his Aston Martin. Sherlock ran his fingers over O’Connell’s face with a scowl — everything that had happened to Lexi and himself, somehow, linked to the Doctor. A flash of memory popped into his vision.

_“I have waited a long time to meet you, Alexandra.”_

Not even Sherlock had received such a magnanimous welcome. Sherlock grabbed the knife he used as a counterweight and slammed it into the picture. The mirror behind the picture smashed inward and Sherlock half-jumped at his mistake. Deep in his thoughts he had forgotten the image was attached to the mirror and he hadn’t expected it to implode. Pieces of glass fell down beside him as the knife wobbled in place. Sherlock stayed looking at the image for the longest of moments, the centre of the knife rested squarely in Adrian O’Connell’s face, as pieces of glass fell to the floor and littered on the mantlepiece. Lexi’s face flashed in his vision, quick enough to break his concentration. Sherlock looked away from the picture and to the floor. The glass littered the rug around him and he twisted his lips irately.

_‘If she sees this mess, she’ll kill me,’_ thought Sherlock.

He went into the kitchen and grabbed the dust pan that sat next to the bin. Sherlock held the dustpan in his hands, testing its weight. It was a foreign object to him and he hadn’t even noticed its existence, he wondered how long it had been since Lexi had moved in. Slowly Sherlock began to collect shards of glass into the dustpan, he picked up a larger fragment and he caught his reflection.

A tired, pallid looking man stared back at him. He’d developed a five o’clock shadow where he hadn’t shaved in a few days and black bags had formed under his eyes where he hadn’t slept. Sherlock threw the piece of glass into the dustpan and sat on the floor, his eyes tracing the red strings that decorated the living room of the flat. Then, oh so slowly, his eyes followed the same string back up to the shattered mirror but instead of looking at the mirror his eyes danced along to the broken piece of wood that hid his stash. He licked his lips but instantly looked down in disgust at the floor, he couldn’t do that to Alexandra, not again. Moriarty’s face flashed in his eyes. 

He blinked and rubbed them with force. Sherlock only stopped when his eyes began to hurt, he opened them again but this time saw only blobs, shapes and fragments of his living room instead of the Irishman’s face. 

Sherlock noticed the door move in the corner and through his fragmented vision Sherlock saw Lexi appear at the door, her hands full with Waitrose bags. The brown haired man heard a long sigh from the woman at the door and then a rustling. She appeared before him with a concerned expression on her face.

“Are you still working on this?” She asked perplexedly, “I told you to go to bed hours ago.”

“When did you disappear?” He countered.

Lexi tilted her head to the side, she ran her soft hand over his cheek with her thumb lingering on his razor sharp cheek bone for what seemed like the longest of moments. Sherlock pressed into her hand letting his guard down. The shapes in his eyes cleared after a moment and Sherlock noticed the change in hair. Lexi, who had been blonde, had gone back to her pink hair — the ends were a purple colour, like she’d dipped the ends into a paint can. 

“You changed your hair…” he commented, letting his own fingers touch her pink locks.

She smiled sheepishly.

“I got bored.”

“Most people read a book,” he said with a smirk. 

“I’m not most people.”

“I like it.”

Lexi’s cheeks blushed ever so slightly. Sherlock’s smirk turned into a toothy smile before he took her into his arms and kissed her. She let out a surprised noise but it soon turned into an agreeable moan. Spurred on Sherlock let his tongue wander, he cherished every moment he got with Lexi. For some reason life had a habit of putting them in danger constantly, though he was sure Lexi would say it was their occupation. Still, whenever he did kiss her it felt… final. As if this kiss would be their last. It was more than lust, more than desire. It was a need, as fundamental as breathing and as vital as oxygen. Simply being in her presence wasn’t enough, like a drug he needed more. 

Lexi hissed suddenly and he drew back, terrified he’d hurt her. Lexi pulled her hand away from the floor and looked at it. A shard of glass was sticking up out of her hand, obviously he hadn’t been as thorough as he’d thought. The blood trickled down from the scar tissue in her hand, he was surprised she had any feeling left in her palm, but the look of pain on her face said otherwise. 

“My apologies… I may or may not have broken the mirror.”

Lexi stood and moved into the kitchen, she leaned over the kitchen sink and pulled out the shard of glass with a frown on her face.

“That’s seven years bad luck, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shrugged before standing up himself.

“I don’t believe in luck.”

Lexi didn’t smile. She looked up at Sherlock, her eyes dark. She had the same look as he did when he saw the bullet — the look of a person with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Except in Lexi’s emerald green eyes there was a hint of concern. 

“Are you going to tell me what all this is?” She asked, bopping her head in motion towards the living room. Sherlock turned to look at his masterpiece. There was red twine everywhere, pictures of Adrian O’Connell littered the walls alongside a bust of Margaret Thatcher and pinned on one wall was a ziplock bag with John’s bullet in it. The card was pieced separately on another wall.

“You felt it in the Welsborough’s manor didn’t you?” He asked, turning to her his eyes full of conspiracy. 

“Felt what?”

“That this,” he twanged on a wire and the whole string moved, “all of this, is connected. The Welsborough’s, O’Connell? It has to be somewhere. We have to be missing something.”

Lexi had a tea towel over her hand. She stepped over towards the ziplock bag and pointed to it.

“You think it’s related to John?”

Sherlock didn’t say anything, he looked at Lexi darkly. Lexi looked at Sherlock, desperate eyes begging him to say something to alleviate her fears. There was nothing he could say that could make her feel better without it being a lie. 

He was saved by a ringtone from his creased suit pocket. Lexi looked at his pocket while Sherlock grabbed his phone. He pulled it out from his pocket and looked at the screen. 

_“14:32PM: I don’t have all day, brother.”_

Sherlock looked over his phone at Lexi, she was still staring at him with thinly veiled hope. He couldn’t meet her eyes, instead he looked down at his phone again.

“I have to go out.”

Lexi blanched openly at him.

“What do you mean you have to go out? You need sleep, Sherlock.”

Sherlock moved past her and down the stairs, she followed closely behind him. 

“I will, soon, I promise.”

Lexi stopped at the front door as he grabbed his coat and went out onto the pavement. Swinging into his coat he held out a hand onto the road. 

“Taxi!”

A black cab pulled over and Sherlock got in, Lexi called to him from the door but Sherlock couldn’t meet her eye. He motioned for the cab to go before looking down at his phone. 

“The Mall, please.”

 

____________________________________

 

The Diogenes Club never changed. The same old men in their well pressed suits sat in the same chairs reading the same newspaper. If Sherlock hadn’t known the Diogenes Club had been there since long before he had been born he would have been tempted to believe that it was all an elaborate set up by Mycroft to make it seem like he had friends. 

Sherlock entered Mycroft’s private study room and lit a cigarette. He took a long drag before looking at his brother, who hadn’t looked up from his newspaper. 

“Adrian O’Connell, what do you know about him?” Asked Sherlock, pacing back and forth.

His elder brother looked up from the tabloid with his usual scowl. He pressed down his newspaper on the table in front of him carefully, so as not to crease the page. (Sherlock absently wondered if they recycled the papers, but then almost immediately dismissed the thought. The Diogenes Club was not the kind of place to care for its environment — not when money was involved.) 

“You mean Doctor Adrian O’Connell, the Irish businessman and philanthropist?”

Sherlock nodded irately, as if that knowledge was too simple for the conversation.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Why?” Asked Mycroft, his scowl shifting into a suspicious squint.

Sherlock flicked his cigarette impatiently.

“You know his name, that’s enough for something to be ‘out of the ordinary.’” 

Mycroft considered Sherlock’s words for a moment before pulling out his small diary. Sherlock paused when he saw it (for he knew his brother’s entire works, including himself, were written in that tiny thing) but continued to pace after a few seconds interlude. 

“Dr Adrian O’Connell, founder and owner of Dobhail Systems and Science, graduated three years ahead of his peers in medicine with a second degree in psychology. Took a separate PhD in chemistry and physics. Won the Breakthrough Prize for the advancement of vaccinations in the third world in 2014. As a side line he has provided more than a few answers to a few of our own… domestic issues.”

“You mean he’s helped you with your own kind of terrorism abroad?”

Mycroft gave the same unimpressed sneer he always gave when he was unimpressed with the bluntness of Sherlock’s questioning.

“If you’d like to call it that then yes, he has helped us on more than a few occasions dealing with insurgencies in… valuable areas.” 

“Like South Africa?”

Mycroft sat forward.

“Have you been hacking again?” He asked with a disappointed tone. 

Sherlock shook his head with a cheeky smirk, he took a drag of his cigarette before putting it out in the ash tray nearest to him.

“No I just read it upside down from here,” he said, pointing to the diary page. Mycroft tutted and slammed the diary shut, tucking it into his pocket defensively. 

“I can hypothesise however that your lapdog helped you get your hands on the diamond mining coming out of South Africa throughout the mid-2000s?” 

Mycroft pressed his lips together so that they made one thin line. He always did so when he couldn’t answer one of Sherlock’s questions because it would make him look like a tit. This time it was Sherlock’s turn to tut. 

“And here I thought you were the good guy, brother.” 

Mycroft stood up, pressing his suit down as he did so. He righted his tie and pushed back his shoulders. 

“For Queen and country, hmm?” Jibed Sherlock. 

“Sleepless nights, Sherlock?” 

The question took Sherlock completely by surprise, for he had thought Mycroft would have risen to the bait. Instead he had changed tact entirely and it was not down a route Sherlock was particularly avid with talking about.

“Last time I saw you this bad, my, it would have been when John died.”

Sherlock pressed his lips into a thin line, he stared at Mycroft darkly. Mycroft stopped just in front of Sherlock, he leaned in close to his brother’s face so that Sherlock could practically taste the coffee Mycroft had drunk. The smell made him nauseous but he didn’t move.

“It’s not so nice being on the other side of things, is it?” Muttered Mycroft in a low voice, his eyes never leaving Sherlock’s. A moment of silence passed between them before Sherlock broke first and moved away. He leaned against the fire place, watching the fire crackle. The noise filled the room as Mycroft watched his younger brother stare off into the flames. The elder Holmes let out a long sigh before sitting back down. 

“O’Connell _was_ looking into a strain of ebola, it would have wiped our rivals in the scientific world off the map. China, Russia, North Korea… none of them would have stood a chance had O’Connell completed his work on the weaponising of ebola.” 

Sherlock turned to look at Mycroft.

“But it was vetoed after the newest general election. I told O’Connell that biological warfare was not on the agenda of our newest Prime Minister but he didn’t take too kindly to the news. You see, like you, once he gets started on something he has to finish it. The British Government wiped their hands clean of biological warfare after the whole North Korean debacle in Malaysia. Though I could tell you that interested parties kept a keen investment into the research and development of Dobhail Systems and Science. Put simply, O’Connell is the worlds foremost leading mind on biological warfare.” 

Sherlock nodded slowly.

“So why would he come to me if one of his agents went missing? Surely he would know my relation to you?” 

Mycroft shrugged, pouting at the same time in disconcertion. 

“That, Sherlock, I do not know. Perhaps it was meant to be an exemplification to the government. It is uncouth to use an asset of the Government in a non-Government operation.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“An ‘asset of the Government?’” Repeated Sherlock.

Mycroft scowled at Sherlock again.

“You know what I mean.” 

“So you think O’Connell is doing this to prove a point to the Government?” 

“Perhaps… Or perhaps he believes you are the best chance he has of getting his lost property back.” 

“I never told you what I was doing for him.”

Mycroft smiled at the bewildered Sherlock.

“I have eyes and ears everywhere, brother.”

Sherlock stood up to leave. He walked towards the door before pausing with his hand on the door knob.

“Oh! Also Mycroft, are you familiar with plaster cast busts of Margaret Thatcher?”

Mycroft looked on after him.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I have one.” Sherlock paused and looked at him.

“How many are there?” 

“It was a limited release, seven I believe. Why?” 

“No reason…” 

With that Sherlock left the room, his brother staring at him as he left. Sherlock pulled out his phone as he left the Diogenes Club. It wouldn’t take him long to find the owners of the busts. But whatever they had to do with O’Connell and John had yet to make itself clear to Sherlock.

_In his mind he saw the red threads again. Except this time they pierced through Lexi’s body and continued down the ornate hallway, this time the red not being the colour of the twine but the sanguine stain of Lexi’s blood — he passed to the end of the hallway and came to a stop in front of a door. He paused outside of it, trying the handle. It wouldn’t open and he didn’t have a key. He knew that whatever was behind the door was the answer he had been looking for._


	10. Guilty Conscience

He threw himself into the bed with significant force, so much so that Lexi’s small frame bounced on the mattress as his head hit the pillow. The force of Sherlock’s slump almost threw Lexi out of bed and she sat up almost immediately in a panic.

“Sherlock, what the fuck!” 

Sherlock peeked at her over his pillow.

“Sorry…”

Sherlock watched as Lexi rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and leaned over to check the alarm clock. Her scathing look made him push his head further into his goose feather pillow.

“Where on earth have you been? Why have you come home so late?” 

She paused, making a small ‘oh no’ noise as she did so.

“When did I start sounding like your mother?” She asked rhetorically, notably shocked with herself. 

Sherlock snorted.

“No comment,” he mumbled into his pillow. He felt Lexi sit for a little while, her breathing being the only noise in the silent flat, but then he heard her pause enough for her breathing to change.

“Are you gonna tell me where you’ve been?” She asked quietly, the humorous tone from her voice dissipating.

Sherlock sat up, his hand on his forehead. He looked at her warily.

“I went to speak to Mycroft.”

Lexi sighed, laying back down in bed as she did so.

“Are you okay?”

Sherlock put his head back down onto his pillow, bringing his arm around Lexi’s waist, she smiled in the dark but turned to look at Sherlock when he didn’t respond straight away.

“I’m fine, I just needed to ask him some questions about Dobhail Systems.”

“And?”

“Well, it turns out O’Connell was employed unofficially by the Government to develop biological warfare. Once the cabinet changed, priorities changed and his funding was cut.”

Lexi rolled so that her cheek was snuggled against Sherlock’s chest, he ran his fingers through her hair out of habit but she didn’t complain. It felt natural to have Lexi pressed against him and he wasn’t quite sure how he coped before he had met her. 

“I gather he didn’t stay unemployed?” Mused Lexi sleepily.

“No…self-funded and very much unchecked.”

Lexi sniffed in amusement.

“So we’re working for the bad guy?”

Sherlock stared at the white ceiling in thought as he felt Lexi shift into the heaviness of sleep.

“I think we might be,” he mumbled quietly. 

 

_________________________________________

_Sherlock held up his hand in a goodbye to his brother as he left the Diogenes Club. He felt Mycroft’s eyes on his back as he walked away._

_“Brother?” Called Mycroft._

_Sherlock paused at the door, he half turned to look at his brother._

_Mycroft looked at him with a shadow in his eyes. Sherlock averted his gaze, how he hated when Mycroft looked at him like an actual human. He much preferred it when Mycroft treated him as an ‘asset’._

_“Yes?”_

_“Would you like a cigarette for your travels?”_

_Sherlock frowned baffled by his brother’s question. He turned back towards Mycroft with a shrug._

_“Is this a trick?”_

_Mycroft smirked._

_“No trick… just an offer of a cigarette.”_

_Sherlock took the cigarette._

_“I hope you’re not getting sentimental, My,” said Sherlock, lighting the cigarette in his mouth in one swift motion._

_Mycroft scoffed._

_“Please. If anything it saves you mumbling as you leave — you know there are strict rules here.”_

_“Hmm,” said Sherlock, not entirely believing his elder brother._

_He turned to leave, this time letting out a puff of smoke as he did so._

_“Goodbye Mycroft.”_

_He closed the door behind him._

_Behind the door Mycroft picked up his phone with a silent frown. He typed into it before biting at his right index finger in frustration. If John had been alive he would have messaged him, to tell him he was concerned for his little brother. But John was dead and he only had Lexi, he had soon discovered that being truthful with Lexi was far more convenient than lying to her. He sent the message and placed his phone down on the side. Mycroft rang a bell and a small, doddering man in a black pressed suit entered the room._

_“Sir?”_

_Mycroft kept his eyes on his phone._

_“Whisky, no ice.”_

_The doddering man nodded once and disappeared back out of the door. Mycroft’s eyes stared at his phone._

 

_Sherlock had wandered for a long time after talking to his brother. The cigarette Mycroft had given him was long finished. Of course he was savvy to his brother’s ‘test’, he knew when his brother was testing his mental wellbeing. The cigarette test had been in place time immemorial, since Sherlock had been seventeen and overwhelmed with his place in the world. Perhaps that was his own answer to this whole kerfuffle; Sherlock was largely apathetic to his brother’s reaction, he didn’t care about the test or the ensuing reaction to the test, nor did he care about the three month follower he would have (because his brother being open enough to approach him was much more expensive than paying a personal spy to watch him). His brain stormed against him, he didn’t quite know how to experience his own emotions. His emotions, his thoughts — what Lexi called the Always — had calmed significantly since the death of Moriarty. To know that the end was in sight was a beautiful feeling. But then the bullet had fallen on to the floor in front of himself and Lexi and his brain had once more become, ostensibly, his shackles. He was defined by the need to calm the waves in his brain and the rebellion in his mind and the images of John haunting him at every turn._

_He wasn’t sure where he was, he often walked across London so that he could think without hindrance. But on every street corner, in every corner shop out of the corner of his eye was an image or reflection of John. He caught himself looking into the Thames and found John standing next to him with that dopey look on his face, as if ready to call him for dawdling in his own mind. He had been okay, he had been fine, he had been living — until Mary (he had assumed Mary had been the sender, Moriarty even beyond the grave would have been flashier) had sent them the birthday card. He had seen the bullet roll across the floor and he had seen those small indentations where the bullet had met with the dense bone of John’s skull. She had done it on purpose to watch him come undone, it had been days since the message and he was sure if she had wanted to Mary could have killed them both in their sleep. But then Mary knew both of their weaknesses was to be trapped with the Always. He was sure her revenge was far sweeter knowing Sherlock would be his own downfall._

_Sherlock had leaned over the barrier separating the pavement from the Thames. He had thought about how easy it would be to throw himself over. No big bang, no dramatic expression of thought or long, melancholy suicide note — a silent end to a noisy mind. But then he had felt eyes on his back and he had turned, his trench coat billowing as he did so, to see a man in a suit with a small smile on his face sitting in a chair facing towards the Thames. Sherlock’s cheeks had pinkened slightly because he had been so caught up in his own silly ideations that he’d failed to notice someone following him and watching his every move. He wondered if the man would have reacted to Sherlock slipping over the edge of the balustrade._

_It was dark out, Sherlock noted as he approached the man sitting in the chair. How long had he been walking? He also noted the empty feeling in his stomach that symbolised how hungry his body was. Sherlock stopped in front of the man._

_“We were told you were very perceptive, Mr Holmes, yet we’ve been following you all day and you’ve only just noticed us,” said the man in the chair. Sherlock frowned at the use of ‘we’; he looked up and around their immediate vicinity and quickly spotted the other men in suits around the area._

_“You’re not with Mycroft, are you?” Retorted Sherlock._

_The man shook his head._

_“We are not.”_

_The man stood, pressing down his suit as if terrified it would leave creases._

_“Please get in the car, Mr Holmes.”_

_A black car pulled up by the kerb. Sherlock huffed near silently at the prospect of getting into an unmarked car — surely his brother was more than enough for this kind of stunt? Sherlock didn’t fight. He got into the car in one swift motion and looked to his stalker._

_Dr Adrian O’Connell sat opposite him with the same clinical smile on his face. He adjusted his glasses so that they weren’t sat on the edge of his nose before looking back to Sherlock._

_“I do often find that a walk can help clear the mind.”_

_Sherlock said nothing as the doctor analysed his response._

_“Perhaps it has helped you come to some realisations? I hope you aren’t going to leave our business unfinished, Mr Holmes,” tutted O’Connell. Sherlock shifted uncomfortably, he hated the crawling feeling of eyes on his flesh and the thought that it was perhaps possible Adrian O’Connell knew what was chewing at his heart. Sherlock forced a cordial smile._

_“Of course not.”_

_O’Connell paused, his green-blue eyes once more crawling over Sherlock’s flesh._

_“It appears as though you need a clue, Mr Holmes, pertaining to my theft.”_

_“I seldom need other people to tell me how to do my job,” sniped Holmes, his eyes sneering slightly at the thought. But Adrian smirked and blinked as if he had mentally written something down. What had he done that had been seen as a weakness to a psychiatrist such as Adrian O’Connell? But O’Connell didn’t respond to his remark outwardly, he continued as if he hadn’t noticed Sherlock’s minor faux pas._

_“My contacts have discovered a potential auction of illicit goods in Seoul. As you know events such as these fall out the public eye and it would be highly obvious if a man such as myself were to attend such an event…”_

_Sherlock frowned._

_“Seoul?”_

_O’Connell nodded._

_“It seems you aren’t as perceptive as everyone says. Perhaps you need to hone your skills, Mr Holmes.” O’Connell looked over him again, “well… you can make it up to me by going to the auction can’t you?”_

_Sherlock felt the car shudder to a halt. He hadn’t even felt it move in the first place, how sloppy he was indeed. The car had stopped outside Baker Street and the door was held open for him. Sherlock looked back at O’Connell._

_“Why would I go to Seoul?”_

_O’Connell looked back at him over his glasses as Sherlock got out of the car, as if the intention of staring was to be as unnervingly creepy as possible._

_“Because we have a contract, Mr Holmes, and it would be bad for business if you weren’t to complete the contract.” Sherlock was sure ‘business’ was a veiled threat, but he didn’t say anything to challenge the doctor. O’Connell continued: “You will have use of Dobhail Systems and Science’s unmarked private jet, of course, we wouldn’t want you tracked by the Korean Government. Shall we say tomorrow afternoon? I’ll send a car to pick you and Ms Stuart up.”_

_________________________

Sherlock ran his fingers through Lexi’s pink hair as she slept. He watched as the sun rose slowly behind the curtains. Lexi shifted in her sleep but she was still a dead weight against his chest. That was fine for him because the longer she slept the more time he had to work out a way to tell Lexi they were going to Seoul that afternoon. Sherlock let out a long, slow breathe in thought; how had his life gotten so out of his control? 


End file.
